“Come on. Don’t be so melodramatic.”
He’s serious, I can tell. He hasn’t called me Frecks or Prof or McKee D for all of five minutes.
“It’s just, I never want to see you like that again,” I tell him. “And if I know why you shut down, why you pulled away from me, why you didn’t even seem to know who I was, well, then—”
“Then what? Then you’ll be able to protect me forever? My knight in shining armour?”
There’s nothing snide in what he says. It actually sounds kind of hopeful.
“If you like,” I say. “Look, I know I’m not Daredevil or The Punisher or anything. In fact, I’m more like Steve Rogersbeforehe took the super-soldier serum and became Captain America. But I would fight for you, El.”
“And I believe you,” he says simply. And for some reason this infuriates me.
“It is, isn’t it?” I stare at him. “Whatever’s gone down tonight, it’s all to do with your vanishing act back in December. Why won’t you justtell me? Whatever it is, I’d understand.”
He nods. “I know you’d understand, Frecks. Of course you would. But here’s the thing: you don’t have to proveanythingto me and I don’t have to tell you everything either. Despite what you read in yourTeen Voguemagazine, relationships aren’t always about absolute disclosure. What matters is trust. So trust me – that thing back there was a moment of madness. A bit of stupidity and, what with everything else today, I had a kind of weird meltdown. Remember what I said about all that murky sewer water that flowed under my bridge before I hit Ferrivale? Well, maybe some of it is still swirling around my ankles after all. It won’t happen again.”
“You’ve promised that before,” I mutter.
We drive on in silence. For the second time in our relationship, it seems that whatever I say, El won’t open up. It’s then that I realize something awful: I don’t know my boyfriend. Not completely. Maybe I never will.
I crack my window. A slipstream of forest air. Trees billow in the early darkness, bursting with the smell of new life. Our school sits in the middle of town, just where Ferrivale’s quaint cobbled streets and picture-postcard shops give way to the crescent of lake and forest that divides houses like mine and Mike’s from the estate where El lives with his Aunt Julia.
While the trees flash by, I have a word with myself. So I’m reading a lot right now; this book on the Ottoman Empire, one on Japanese isolationism, and then this one on the American War of Independence, all in my spare time. Yeah, because I havesomuch of that at the minute, what with final exams and essays looming. Mr Morris says my “commendable but unfocused” love of history might result in me failing the subject altogether, just because I have this irresistible need to satisfy my curiosity. El made a face when I told him. He says education should be about just that – feeding irresistible curiosity. He has a point, but if I want to teach the subject myself one day, I have to pass these exams.
Anyway, the American Revolution, the Battle of Monmouth, 1778 (I’m kind of anal about dates): this guy, Major General Charles Lee, has the British in retreat. Everything’s going great for him, more or less, and then for no reason anyone can really understand, Lee ordershismen to retreat. He’s turned victory into disaster and General George Washington basically bitch-slaps the hell out of him, right in front of Lee’s own troops. All this strikes a chord.I’m Lee. All through my relationship with El I’ve been advancing a bit and then retreating. I’m not sure why. Maybe El’s right, maybe it’s because I think I’m unworthy of him. Screw that, Iamunworthy. Jesus, just look at him. But I’m done with acting out my own personal Battle of Monmouth.
I’m done retreating.
“Okay.” I nod. “I’ll let it go.”
El turns to look at me, his smile full of relief.
“But,” I add, “this is the last time. You never told me what went on with you at Christmas, not really, and you’re holding back again now. So promise me: no more secrets.”
“All right,” he says quietly. “I promise.”
El’s headlights splash along the forest road, and I give his promise a moment to bed in.
“So,” I sigh, unkinking the stress in my neck, “where are we going?”
“Home, of course.”
“Oh. Yours or mine?” I can’t hide my disappointment. It’s a warm night, full of the kind of possibilities that home won’t allow.
“Neither,” he says. “Ours.”
I grin. “Hideous Beauty?”
He nods. “Check the back seat.”
I glance over the headrest. There’s the wicker hamper from yesterday’s surprise rooftop picnic, one of the sides pushed up, a bottle of red wine poking out. And so the weirdest, but also the mostamazingnight of my life is about to get a lot more amazing! I can picture it already.
Moonlight in the belfry, the bottle empty, our lips plummy with the aftertaste. The tartan blanket on the groaning wooden planks, rolling and twisting under us. Kisses, caresses, firmness, softness, teasing and tender promises, all under the watch of the gargoyle that El has sketched over and over since I first took him to the ruined country church. Stanley, El’s nickname for our stone protector, will stand watch, keeping us safe from any darkness that might threaten us.
I turn back to El, grinning. “You planned all this? When?”
He shrugs. “However it went today, I thought you might need this.”
