“Yeah.” I hear the smile in Henry’s voice. “This school is like some kind of dating site. I know loads of couples who met here.”
“Like you and Grace,” I say.
He doesn’t answer right away. “Like me and Grace.” He stops and points his phone torch down another branching tunnel. “We can go this way.”
“How come you know your way around down here so well?” I murmur.
“Years of practice. And a good memory.”
We reach a staircase and Henry lights up the broad steps aheadof us. Just before we get to the top, he switches off the torch. We’re inside a building, and there’s pale moonlight shining through the high windows.
“We have to keep quiet again now,” he whispers.
It feels totally surreal, walking beside Henry along the deserted corridors. I haven’t the least idea which part of the school we’re in, but this area seems vaguely familiar.
Henry puts his finger to his lips as we approach a large set of double doors in dark wood. He puts a hand on the latch and cautiously pushes it open. There’s a long, drawn-out screech, and Henry bites his bottom lip, waving to me to go ahead. I flit through the crack in the door and stop.
“Oops, sorry...” murmurs Henry as he stumbles into me. His hand is on my side; he pulls it back, and I hurriedly step forward. He shuts the door, switches his phone torch on again, and then I recognize where he’s brought me.
“Ta-da! The school library,” he says. The tall shelves, laden with countless books, swallow his voice. “It doesn’t get more clichéd than this.”
“That’s a shame,” I murmur. The sound of his quiet laugh gives me goose bumps.
“I’ll have to think of something to make your Scottish boarding-school experience even more authentic,” he promises.
“It’s already pretty good,” I say, holding my breath as Henry puts his hand on my shoulder. We shouldn’t keep touching like this, and I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s driving me crazy. “Except the phone light is really killing the atmosphere.”
“That’s why I’m looking for the candles.”
I have to laugh. “Seriously?”
“Yes, of course. Ah, here they are.” I stay still as Henry steps to one side and puts his phone down on a small shelf. Seconds later, there’s a hiss and a little flame strikes up. He lights three candles and it’s brighter now. The warm light throws flickering shadows onto all the books against the walls. Most of them look so old and valuable that I don’t dare get them down.
Silently, I walk past one bookcase, running my fingers over the spines. Henry follows me.
“Does it ever get normal, living here?” I ask after a while, not looking around.
“I don’t think so, no,” he says.
At that moment, I spot a little plaque on one of the shelves:Yearbooks 2015–2020. They’re chunky and they all look exactly the same, apart from the different years on the spines. My heart beats faster.
I glance at Henry; he’s just pulled down a book and started flicking through it.
I hastily look up at the labels on the shelves.
Yearbooks 1995–2000
Yearbooks 1990–1995
1994. That must have been their year.
I’m about to reach out for the book when Henry joins me. “What are you looking at?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say hurriedly, turning away and pretending to study the display case full of trophies and photos that are standing right next to the bookcase.
I don’t know why I don’t just tell him the truth. Maybe becauseI have to be alone when I look in that book for clues to the man who couldn’t care less about my existence. It’s humiliating enough as it is.
“Rugby’s the shit here, isn’t it?” I ask instead. It’s the first thing that comes to mind. Hardly surprising, considering all the cups and photos I can see behind the glass.
