Fence

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  Nicholas wasn’t sure what that meant.

  Bobby leaned in to whisper to Nicholas. “Do you see the way Bastien’s staring at Aiden? And Bastien’s incredibly good-looking, isn’t he?”

  “Is he?” Nicholas checked.

  French sunshine seemed different from American sunshine, at once brighter and paler, primrose colored. The sunlight was splashing through the leaves of the boughs above the picnic table. Bastien’s shoulders were broad beneath his white polo shirt, and his brown curly hair was untidy in an on-purpose way. He had a cleft chin.

  “Almost as good-looking as Seiji,” Bobby confirmed in a very low voice.

  “What? No way,” said Nicholas.

  “Do you think Bastien and Aiden will date?”

  Nicholas shrugged. “Probably. Aiden dates everybody, right?”

  Aiden had even dated the captain, but that hadn’t lasted long. Nicholas felt another prickle of unease. Harvard and Aiden had seemed really happy when they were dating. Would the captain feel okay about seeing Aiden go off with other guys the way he used to?

  Even familiar things felt strange in France.

  The hush that had fallen over the table was broken by Melodie opining that Aiden was too skinny for her taste, and Jesse asking imperiously what everyone was staring at.

  “Your captain, though, his shoulders have great potential.” Melodie sneaked a glance at Eugene. “So many men neglect their delts.”

  “That’s what I’m always saying!” Eugene exclaimed.

  Bastien was still staring over at Aiden, but with a mighty effort to be polite, he wrenched his attention back to their table.

  “Your pardon.” Bastien turned to Nicholas with an apologetic smile. “Got distracted for a second there. Nicholas, before you came, Seiji was telling me you’re his fencing partner.”

  Jesse’s sunny expression went into an eclipse.

  “Fencing with Seiji was always such a revelation,” Bastien said. “I’d be thrilled to fence with his partner. After drills, what do you say you and I have a match, Nicholas? Everybody enjoys watching a good match.”

  His first practice bout! Nicholas’s heart raced with excitement. “Yeah, totally!”

  Sometimes people remarked that Nicholas ran recklessly toward disaster. Nicholas didn’t see their point.

  “Wonderful,” Bastien said happily. “Well, I want to go introduce myself to someone. Catch you later, Nicholas. Excited to find out what you can do.”

  He swung easily up off the bench and launched himself toward Aiden’s retreating back.

  Nicholas’s heart was pounding, his body was alive with nerves and anticipation. It felt like pins and needles, but in a pleasant way. His first bout. His first match with everyone watching! Nicholas couldn’t wait, but he had a full day of training ahead of him, the sort of training that had forged fencers like Seiji and Jesse. The sort of training that prepared people for the Olympics.

  Bastien had called this the Old World, with an inflection that suggested Nicholas’s world could not compare. With its ancient stone buildings and system of rules inflexible as the stone, it did seem like an entirely different world. But Nicholas felt at home in Kings Row now. He could prove himself at Camp Menton, as well.

  When Nicholas looked up from his plate, he found Jesse watching him. Jesse, who Seiji had said Nicholas couldn’t compete with.

  “What?” Nicholas asked.

  Jesse opened his blue eyes very wide. “I’m just looking forward to watching your match,” Jesse answered innocently. “So excited for everybody to find out exactly what you can do.”

  16 AIDEN

  Aiden was exhausted before the training drills at Camp Menton even started. He worried the drills might actually kill him. He hadn’t slept well in the bed Harvard had exiled him to, as far away from Harvard as he could be. He got up early to walk the cliffs restlessly, staring out at the sea, and when he finally came to breakfast, he discovered Harvard eating with his new best friend, Arune. Great. Good for Harvard. Aiden resisted the urge to storm off and sauntered away casually instead.

  Some guys tried to talk to Aiden, as usual, but he was busy. Aiden had to find his own new best friend, coffee.

  “You’re late,” observed a coach with steely gray eyes when Aiden eventually wandered into the salle d’armes clutching his cup of coffee. “That incurs penalties for your whole team.”

  Aiden cast a look at his team, huddling close together in the dense chill that only gathered in old stone buildings.

  Aiden, refusing to draw closer to them or show the least apprehension, drawled, “What penalties?”

  “Can’t be worse than suicides,” muttered Nicholas.

  “Suicides,” replied the coach succinctly.

  Ah. The only thing worse than suicides. More suicides. Aiden and Nicholas shared an eye roll, united in disapproval of the camp rules in general and suicides in particular. Nicholas gave Aiden a little grin afterward.

  “You have already missed part of the drills,” said the coach. “It’s essential you give your best efforts to the remaining portion.”

  Aiden wasn’t in a best efforts frame of mind. He wasn’t in an efforts frame of mind.

  “What is our aim?” shouted the coach. Aiden dimly recalled from yesterday that his name was Robillard.

  “Speed, strength, technique!” shouted the other teams.

  “You missed orientation,” mumbled Nicholas.

  “I’ll be honest with you, Nicholas, I wouldn’t have listened anyway,” muttered Aiden.

  They started with fencing-specific exercises in which they executed moves similar to fencing moves. Once perfected, they would then move on to fencing-transferable exercises, in which they did nonfencing moves in order to increase strength and flexibility. For fencing. Then, and only then, would they be allowed to pick up blades.

  So this was hell.

  Aiden probably deserved to be there, but Harvard did not.

  They started with lateral broad jumps, five sets of fifteen repetitions. Halfway into the first set, Aiden felt dizzy. Maybe he should’ve eaten breakfast. Maybe he should’ve eaten yesterday.

  Nicholas looked like he was going to throw up. Harvard left his own strip to see to Nicholas, murmuring advice. He hesitated by Aiden for a fraction of an instant, but Aiden clearly wasn’t worth the bother. Harvard moved on.

  Coach Robillard penalized Harvard for pausing. They were assigned more suicides.

  Standing long jumps were a little better, but the last week was really catching up to Aiden, and honestly, why bother? Why love fencing? Why love anything?

  When they were made to do five sets of reverse long jumps, Aiden started idly fluttering his eyelashes at random boys in the salle d’armes, in order to see which ones he could make stumble. The answer was… most of them.

  “Mr. Kane!” snapped Coach Robillard.

  “Don’t make me run suicides because I’m beautiful,” said Aiden.

  The Kings Row team was assigned more suicides.

  Pistol squats, vertical jumps, band thrusts, and anterior planks followed. The Kings Row team sucked. It would have been embarrassing if Aiden had cared at all.

  He didn’t dare let his eyes linger on Harvard, muscles moving, sleek under the dancing colors shed by the stained-glass windows. He couldn’t watch Harvard move, or watch his constant attentive kindness for everyone but Aiden. But Aiden himself was terrible, and Nicholas was flailing. He clearly hadn’t done half these exercises before.

  Only Seiji moved with absolute, elegant precision. He should have been drawing looks of admiration. Instead, due to the company he was in, he was drawing looks of pity.

  Seiji kept his gaze focused straight ahead, his expression neutral. With each pitying glance Seiji got, Nicholas’s face clouded with misery and fury. Nicholas was making more and more mistakes.

  Exton and MLC were keeping up far better. The MLC fencers weren’t up to the standards of the European fencers, but they looked good compared to Kings Row. Exton
was miles ahead, smooth and polished. Led by their captain, Jesse, a shining figure who moved smoothly on the piste as though he were skating on ice, Exton looked like winners.

  As the captain of the Kings Row team, Aiden knew Harvard had been so hoping to win the state championships this year. Aiden had been hoping a little himself. But clearly, if you asked anyone at Camp Menton, they would tell you Kings Row had no chance at the championship.

  Luckily, Aiden had decided to stop hoping for anything before he arrived.

  The coach wrapped up the drills and said, “Excellent work, everyone. Kings Row, I expect more from you. Mr. Kane, you will not be late to our classes again.”

  With that, it was time for a break.

  “Where’s Eugene?” Aiden asked idly as Harvard encouraged the others to hydrate. “Did he fake sick? I suspect Eugene is a secret genius.”

  Harvard frowned in Aiden’s direction, which was the first time he’d really looked at Aiden all day. “Eugene fainted, and he had to go to the infirmary.”

  Aiden felt confirmed in his belief Eugene was a secret genius.

  “I should try fainting to get out of these classes, too,” he drawled. “You can catch me.”

  It was a joke. It was how Aiden always talked to Harvard. It made them both freeze. Aiden felt like someone had stabbed him with an icicle that shattered, leaving cold shards working their way through his heart. He wondered if Harvard remembered the time during trust falls when Aiden had been the one who caught Harvard. Aiden had relived that moment far too often. He’d thought continually of how it had been to hold Harvard, warm in his arms, and feel as if he could keep him. Harvard probably didn’t remember anything at all.

  Harvard glanced at Aiden, then glanced away. “Look. I’ve been thinking. What if we, uh, do something together tonight after fencing?” Before Aiden could respond, Harvard added swiftly, “You know, as friends.”

  The brief bright hope that had winked into light in Aiden’s chest became a black hole. “Sorry, buddy. Busy later,” Aiden lied breezily. “Got a date.”

  He left the salle d’armes, left Harvard’s disappointed dark eyes, and went out into the daylight. It was too bright here. It made Aiden’s exhausted eyes sting. He leaned against the cool stone wall, tipping his head back and wishing for peace.

  “Oh, hello. There you are. I’m Bastien,” said some French boy.

  Aiden opened his eyes and made himself smile.

  “Aiden Kane. They post about me on the fencing message boards. The warnings are true.”

  The French boy seemed intrigued. Apparently, people at Camp Menton had no sense of self-preservation. Aiden glanced back over his shoulder at Harvard, who was laughing with stupid Arune again. Aiden hadn’t seen Arune since elementary school, when Arune had laughed—gently enough, but it still stung—at Aiden for being Harvard’s small, devoted shadow. Humiliation had a particular charred taste at the back of Aiden’s mouth that he was very familiar with at this point. Had Harvard been in touch with Arune this whole time and just never mentioned it?

  Seeing Arune made Aiden feel as if he were still that kid who used to cling to Harvard, when Arune and Harvard were friends and Aiden felt like the hanger-on of the group. But Aiden had changed since then. Arune didn’t seem to have changed much. He still seemed cool.

  Arune was as tall as Harvard, and as good at sports, and he was kind in the same way Harvard was, without even having to think about it. Aiden had worried all through elementary school that Harvard would trade up for a better best friend.

  There was more to Aiden’s feelings about Arune than petty jealousy, though. Aiden couldn’t set eyes on Arune without flashing back to that incident when they were nine, and feeling his insides curl up hot with shame.

  No, Aiden wouldn’t think about it.

  The French boy—Blaise?—was talking about welcoming Americans to Camp Menton and some match he had later on. Apparently, it was the first Camp Menton bout of the year.

  “I can see you’re difficult to impress,” the French boy was prattling on. “But if you let me try, I think I can manage it.”

  “Who knows what I might let you do,” Aiden murmured.

  Bernard, or whoever, smiled. “If I win my match, it’s tradition for me to get a reward. So… do you think I could get a date?”

  The impulse toward cruelty stirred, the same way it had with the last nameless, faceless boy at Kings Row. Aiden smiled, and it wasn’t a pleasant smile, but the French boy looked fascinated.

  “Only if you absolutely crush him,” Aiden purred.

  Perhaps Aiden would feel better if he saw someone else feel worse.

  The empty motions of flirtation came easy, thank God. The rays of sunlight in France seemed particularly piercing, bouncing off white mountains and azure sea to stab Aiden in the eyeballs. He’d wanted to go to France, but wherever he went, there he was. There seemed no hope of rescue.

  Except then Coach Williams said, “A word with you, if you please, Aiden Kane.”

  Aiden meandered over to where Coach stood, with a brief feeling of relief. Coach’s vacation clothes appeared to be a blue-and-white hoodie, slightly fancier than the red-and-white hoodie she wore at Kings Row.

  The relief dissipated as Aiden grew closer. The way Coach looked at him, reproach in her direct dark eyes, made Aiden want to flinch. So he flung up his head and sneered instead.

  “What was today’s performance about? I’m surprised by you.”

  “At this point, I can’t imagine why,” said Aiden. “Seems like totally on-brand behavior for me.”

  He wondered how Eugene was.

  “Are you going to ask me how Eugene is?”

  “That didn’t occur to me,” said Aiden. “No.”

  “Your teammate’s fine,” Coach told him briskly, and Aiden let out a small sigh of relief. Coach caught him. Her eyes sharpened. “Why are you trying so hard to mess up your life, Aiden?”

  He wasn’t trying to mess up his life. He was just trying to be someone who could be content with what he had. He was tired of wanting what he couldn’t have. He’d done it for years. Once he’d started dating around, there’d at least been the relief of distraction, the pleasure of being the one desired. He’d still wanted what he couldn’t have, it had still hurt, but Aiden could think about it less.

  Then Harvard had started dating, and Aiden was wretchedly and blazingly miserable, and when Harvard was feeling unsure about how dating went, they’d tried their ill-fated dating experiment. And Aiden was suddenly aware of exactly what he was missing out on—in vivid and soul-destroying detail. He kept thinking if only he’d done it right, if only he’d been better in some way, then Harvard would have wanted to date him for real. Only Aiden hadn’t been good enough.

  He had to accept that he wasn’t good enough.

  That seemed long and embarrassing to explain, and Aiden had an allergy to being emotionally vulnerable.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Coach,” Aiden answered. “My dad? Rich. My face? Beautiful. My personal life? Thrilling. What’s the problem?”

  “The problem is, Aiden, that if you keep going on the way you are, you could get in real trouble. Watch yourself. Imagine the worst-case scenario here: If you get expelled from Camp Menton, your father will pull you out of Kings Row rather than have you face any consequences.”

  He’d never wanted to be like his father, but perhaps he was anyway. Time to put childhood dreams up on a shelf where he should’ve put his childhood teddy bear years ago, along with those old childish longings to be good and to be loved.

  “C’est la vie,” said Aiden.

  Coach let out an explosive breath. “You can always make up for any mistakes, Aiden, no matter how bad they are. It’s not too late. All you have to do is try.”

  “Sorry, are you a fencing coach or a life coach?” asked Aiden.

  “I wish you’d try at fencing!” Coach snapped. “I really thought you were turning things around, Aiden. You were finally attempting teamwork. Y
ou were talking to your stepmother again. What went wrong?”

  Rosina hadn’t been Aiden’s stepmother. She’d left Aiden’s father—and Aiden—before they’d married. Nobody stayed, except Harvard. Aiden had never trusted anyone to stay and care… except Harvard.

  Aiden remembered Harvard standing at their dormitory window back at Kings Row. The only person Aiden had ever really loved, telling Aiden that falling in love with him was the worst thing he could imagine.

  “I guess I’m a hopeless case,” he said lightly.

  Coach was massaging the space between her eyebrows. Aiden left her so that he could experience existential despair among the lemon trees.

  After a time, he wandered back toward the sound of murmurs and a ripple of laughter. There seemed to be some excitement going on. Aiden drew closer, wandering down the corridor toward the salle d’armes, listening to the voices. Apparently, people were looking forward with prurient glee to seeing one of the French champions trounce an American kid.

  At the edges of the salle d’armes, there was a crowd gathering, finding seats on the circular benches, or places to stand. Harvard was easy to spot, Aiden’s eyes long accustomed to searching for and finding him in every crowd. His shoulders were broad beneath a white shirt, and he was standing beside Arune, wearing his most attentive and supportive expression. Harvard had embraced Arune on sight; he hadn’t touched Aiden, other than grabbing his arm, in over a week. Aiden listened more carefully to the surrounding whispers to figure out who the American fencing was.

  A cold needle of misgiving pricked when he saw the too-confident French boy loping across to the piste toward a smaller figure, who made whites look like being badly dressed. Who, Aiden realized, was Nicholas Cox.

  Aiden often made fun of Nicholas. He couldn’t understand the way Nicholas lived or did his hair, but that didn’t change the fact Nicholas was his teammate.

  Aiden had asked for him to be crushed.

  Coach said Aiden could make up for his mistakes, but Aiden kept making new ones instead.