Are you okay?
I read the question several times, trying to work out how it made me feel. Warm, because he was thinking about me in the middle of the night? Relieved, because despite what his friends had done today–and he must know about it–he wasn’t distancing himself? Or angry, because ‘his friends’ included him, and I couldn’t be sure he didn’t have something to do with it? I looked again at the name I’d saved him under. Heathcliff, instead of Blake. What I wanted to see, instead of what he kept showing me: he was one of them.
Pica
Did you know they were planning to burn Davie’s research?
I drew my feet up onto the chair and hugged my knees, waiting for him to reply. He was online, but he wasn’t typing. Maybe three minutes, then two words came back.
Heathcliff
Mabel, please.
Rage flared, smothering all gentler emotions. I hammered fiercely at the keypad.
Pica
???
This time he began typing immediately.
Heathcliff
You know I’m not going to answer that.
Of course I knew. It didn’t mean he was involved, or that he’d known about it in advance. But it did mean he wouldn’t say anything to incriminate his friends. He would always keep his mouth shut to protect them. After all, he’d been doing exactly that for weeks: being evasive, saying only as much as he wanted to. And it wasn’t enough. I wouldn’t let it be enough. I couldn’t give up now, just because gathering information was becoming less important to me than what I felt when we were together. The curiosity, the fascination, that warm sense of being seen. Of being understood. Ultimately, none of it meant anything, because it didn’t matter who Blakecouldbe, or who he might have been without his friends. It only mattered what he was now. Someone who was allowing all this to happen around him. Someone who wasn’t helping me. Someone I couldn’t allow myself to like, if I wanted to still like myself.
My lip quivered, but I didn’t hesitate.
Pica
Then don’t bother to text me back. You were right. It’s better if we just drop the whole thing.
Immediately, Blake began to type. He paused, began again,paused again. For nearly five minutes I stared at the screen– eyes throbbing, heart pounding. It skipped two beats when the answer came.
Heathcliff
Just leave it alone, Pica.
I smiled bitterly, and the movement tipped the first tear down my cheek.
Pica
Not your problem, Blake.
I knew using that name would have more impact than blocking him. He knew it too. And he stopped responding. I should have been relieved, but instead I ended up sobbing at my desk at two in the morning, surrounded by a jumble of papers scrawled with notes for essays I should have finished ages ago, photos of me and my best friend, who wasn’t talking to me, the golden glow of my desk lamp, and the grey curtains, shadow weaving into nightmare in their folds. And running through my mind was a single line, the last thing I’d read before I shoved the book to the far corner of my shelf.It is a long fight; I wish it were over!
I wished it too, I truly did. The only trouble was… I sensed the fight had only just begun. Yet I wasn’t crying because I was afraid of what lay ahead. I was crying because it struck me that some things ended before they’d even had a chance to start. And that it was funny how an end without a beginning could hurt this much.
Chapter16
Mabel
Ieyed my reflection sceptically in the gold-framed floor-to-ceiling mirror, which hung in the front hall next to the coat rack. My black velvet dress had puff sleeves and buttons down the front, and was gathered at the waist in a way that made the skirt swing with every step. It was so tight that each breath was slightly painful. This was mainly because I’d had it for three years, but unfortunately it was the only dress in my wardrobe that could conceivably pass as fashionable.
I could have borrowed one from Zoe, but then I’d have to talk to her. Since the argument more than two weeks ago, she’d responded in monosyllables to my attempts at conversation. I barely saw her outside of lectures and seminars, but I got the sense she only went out to see Ashton, and apart from that, she hardly left her room. Which was making me uneasier by the day.
Last year Zoe had dragged me to pretty much every Christmas party the university had to offer. We’d gone to half a dozen champagne receptions at faculties that had nothing to do with us, to carolling singalongs with at least as many choirs, to various university-club drinks. I’d only tagged along for her sake, knowing there’d be no other reason for me to go next year, either. But now here I was, on the Friday before the Christmas break, going to the History Faculty’s drinks reception at Trinity College.
