“Doesn’t it sort of feel like this is a dream?”
“Yeah,” he says, then closes his eyes again. Mae is about to crawl into her own bunk when she hears his voice again. “A good one?”
“Yes,” she says, and he shifts over, leaving room for her to climb into the bunk beside him. It’s not graceful; she scrabbles to find the step, then bumps her head on the ceiling, and when she tries to shimmy in beside him, her foot gets caught in the safety net. But eventually she burrows her way into the small space, and he slips his arms around her so that she can feel the thud of his heart against her back as she falls asleep.
Sometime just before dawn,Hugo wakes with a start. The light behind the curtains is dull, the train jostling beneath them. One arm is draped over Mae’s shoulder, his nose buried in her hair. He doesn’t remember her climbing into bed with him, but it somehow also feels like she’s always been here, curled beside him in this tiniest of spaces.
She’s breathing softly, whistling a little each time she inhales, and he disentangles himself carefully, reaching for his mobile, which he tucked beneath his pillow. The glow of the screen brightens the room, and he turns on his side to keep from waking Mae. It’s just before five a.m., which means it’s late morning back home. He finds a text from his dad with a picture of the breakfast table. In it, there are seven plates piled with bacon and eggs and toast, and one empty one in the middle.Come home soon,it says.We miss you.
Hugo lowers his mobile, filled with a clawing despair.
A quote flashes into his head from a Samuel Beckett play he read in his literature class this year:I can’t go on, I’ll go on.
The words had chimed at something in him even then, but now they feel like a drumbeat, and he opens his mobile again to write to Alfie, a test balloon that sets his heart beatingwildly.
Hugo: What if I didn’t come back?
Alfie: Ever??
Hugo: No, I was thinking more like a gap year.
Alfie: I can’t tell if you’re taking the piss.
Hugo: I’m not.
Alfie: Wow. That would be like the complete opposite of pulling a Hugo.
Hugo: Do you think Mum and Dad would kill me?
Alfie: Yes.
Hugo: But after that, they’d be okay with it?
Alfie: As long as you get your arse to uni at some point.
Hugo: George would never forgive me.
Alfie: You know how he is. He just likes to keep the flock together. But I’m sure he’d come around eventually.
Hugo: Maybe.
Alfie: Yeah, maybe.
Hugo: It’s a bit mad, isn’t it?
Alfie: I don’t know. It kind of makes sense. Your heart was never in it.
Hugo: It’s in this.
Alfie: So you’d give up the scholarship?
Hugo: Hopefully just defer it for a year.
Alfie: Better check to make sure we’re not a package deal. Five out of six isn’t bad, but you know they might not see it that way.
Hugo: I wouldn’t go ahead if it messed up anything up for the rest of you.
Alfie: But you really want it?
