Tch, and here I make my mistake. I nod. Even though we both know that that’s ridiculous.
Becausejust friendsdon’t wake up with a throbbing between their legs when they’ve had another dream about the other person holding them in their sleep.
But if we can’t be just friends, we can’t be anything. We’d be classmates who avoid each other. And I couldn’t bear that. Besides, it would be pretty difficult. This isn’t just school; it’s where I live. I see him from morning to evening. In class, at meals, just after getting up and at midnight parties. It’s impossible, so I’ve got to pull myself together. We can act like adults around each other. Like friends. And friends help each other out. Without ulterior motives.
“We are,” I tell him.
17
Henry
“God, this place really hasn’t changed.” Maeve spins on her heel before we leave the rear courtyard through one of the large gateways in the north wing. Her pale-green dress flies out around her calves as she does so; her hair’s shorter than the last time I saw her.
“It’s not that long since you left,” I say.
“True.” She looks up once we’re out on the gravel path that circles the buildings. Above the school’s dark-brick facade and pointed turrets, the sun is shining in a cloudless blue sky. “A year and a bit, but it feels like half a lifetime.”
I nod, because it feels like that to me too. It seems ages since I started the fifth form, on the first day when it wasn’t just Theo who’d left but Maeve too. I was no longer the youngest Bennington—I was the only Bennington. Maeve’s well into her medicine degree now, while Theo is a year ahead of her.
I can barely remember what it was like when I saw my brother and sister here every day, around the school or in the dining room at mealtimes. I knew I could go to them any time I neededthem. I didn’t realize how privileged that made me until later. And I miss it. Because even if everything goes to plan and I get into St. Andrews too, I know it won’t be the same, that things will never be the way they were when we were all at Dunbridge Academy together. Theo often talks about doing a semester in Canada, and Maeve’s hinted that she wants to travel. They won’t stay in Scotland forever. In that respect, they’re completely different from me. Even though I’m sure that they’ll look back on their time here with happy memories, they found it restricting to spend so long in one place.
I guess those are the logical outcomes of traveling more in your childhood than other people do in their whole lives. Either you long to arrive somewhere, or you’re constantly pulled to explore, to see the whole world. Theo and Maeve are definitely the second type.
“Do you miss it? Boarding-school life?”
“I miss being close to you,” she says, and I’m sure it’s still there, the invisible connection that meant we always knew what the other was thinking. I’d been scared it might get lost if I spent such a long time apart from my big sister, but fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. “And I miss boarding-school life too,” she continues. “Everything’s more anonymous somehow at uni. I don’t even know my neighbors’ names, they change so fast. And I miss the morning runs.” Maeve laughs. “Who’d have thought I’d ever say that?”
“I can believe it,” I say, and her eyes rest suspiciously on me. “I’m actually quite enjoying them these days.”
“What have they done to you?”
“I had to put some effort into getting onto the rugby team.”
“Well, that’s nuts too,” Maeve says. “So did you make it?” She smiles. “Of course you did. You always manage anything you set your mind to.”
I walk next to her in silence.
“How’s Grace?” Maeve asks.
“Fine,” I say. “She sends her love.”
When Maeve doesn’t answer, I turn my head toward her. She’s a few steps away from me now, sitting on the wide wooden swing that hangs from a thick branch on one of the old lime trees that line the path to the stables.
“What?” I ask as she just looks at me.
“Nothing.” She pushes off and swings toward me. “No, there is something, isn’t there?”
“Maeve...” I groan.
“Have you two had a row?”
“No,” I say. We don’t see enough of each other for that. We only meet in lessons and in the dining room. Or for lunch with her family, which I feel worse about every time. Especially now when all I can think about is Emma’s sleeping body next to mine. That and her warm, soft skin.
“What is it, then?”
“Nothing,” I snap. “Everything’s fine, OK?”
Maeve doesn’t bat an eyelid, which makes me even angrier. There’s never been any point in trying to lie to my sister. I don’t know how she does it, but somehow, she always seems to know how I’m feeling better than I do myself.
