‘It’s more thewaywe’re seeing each other. He absolutely cannot find out we’ve got this close. You promise?’
I raised my head and tried to look serious. ‘I won’t mention it at our daily coffee catch-ups.’
Blake didn’t smile. ‘It’s not funny, Mabel. He can’t find out. None of them can.’
‘You’re actually scared,’ I realised, astonished. ‘I thought you weren’t afraid of anything.’
‘I haven’t been, not for a long time,’ he said softly. I could feel his heart against my skin, beating rapidly. ‘But now you’re here, and… that changes everything.’
Perhaps it was the greatest compliment he could give me. If emotions had shadows, then the shadow of attachment was definitely fear. It clung to its heels and could not be shaken off, ever. Even in moments of brightness, when it was invisible, it was still there. I knew that because I was still as afraid as ever. Not of him, but for him.
‘But it doesn’t really change anything, does it? You’re still you, and I’m still me. We’re just not on the same side.’
‘I’m on your side. More than you know. But that’s exactly why I can’t give you what you want.’
I rested my head against him, closed my eyes. I didn’t have to look at him to know he wasn’t going to change his mind. But nor was I. ‘Fine, then that’s just how it is: I won’t give up, and you won’t give in. Right?’
Gently he stroked the back of my head, but his voice was hard and resolute. ‘Right.’
So simple, so complicated, so utterly impossible, this thing between us. It changed nothing and it changed everything. Perhaps all that remained to us was this. This moment, in a bubble all our own.
Chapter21
Mabel
Iran a sharp eye over the kitchen counter as I shrugged on my coat. Blake said when I was in his flat I acted like a guest at a holiday rental, because I made a point of leaving it tidy when I was here alone. But he must have known it was my way of saying thank you for letting me come here when I needed a change from the library.
My fingers fumbled for the magpie ornament in my pocket. With a shake of the head, Blake had dismissed my attempt to return the Christmas decorations I took down from the tree last week.Keep them. They mean nothing to my family, and I’d rather know you had them. It had sounded like goodbye, like so much of what he said to me. Like the way he looked at me sometimes, too. As if he was trying to commit something to memory. Not what he could see, but the whole moment we shared. The quiet moments when I came to his flat and we ate together and watched old films, talked or simply looked at one another, reallyseeing. When he dropped in at the library and kissed me behind the stacks of dusty books. The smell of paper, the low light, whispers, pounding hearts–that was all. When I saw him walk past my staircase while we were on the phone, and he always refused to come up. I didn’t know if he was afraid of bumping into Ashton or Zoe, or if he was just afraid of me. Of forgetting why he couldn’t do what we both so obviously wanted to. Whatever it was, it always made him pull away from the kiss just as I was getting so turned on I couldn’t think straight. The kind of turned on I would never have allowed if I had a choice, because it made my movements jittery, the reactions of my body treacherous, and turned my words to sighs. It was so at odds with the me I expected of myself: rational, prudent, sensible. But it did fit the me who felt so complete since finding Blake, so much more than I had been before–the person I had been since we’d begun to share these moments, which he gathered up with his eyes as if he knew deep down they were finite. So finite they were more end than beginning.
I pushed the thought to the back of my mind as hard as I could. By now I’d had a lot of practice. Just as I was about to head for the door, I heard someone unlocking it from the outside. A moment later it flew open, and a girl barged into the flat. She couldn’t be older than fifteen or sixteen, and she looked so strikingly like Blake that I could only stare at her. Her hair was just as thick and dark, her eyes serious in a way that made her seem older than she was. Classic features, and a piercingly sharp gaze that surveyed me warily.
‘Hey. You’re Aspen, right? Have you come to see your brother?’ Blake hadn’t mentioned anything to me, but I knew Aspen had a spare key for emergencies.
‘No, I just came to grab my riding helmet, I left it here last time. The driver’s waiting downstairs.’
She gave me a curious smile, which softened the edges of her face. ‘You’re the girl my brother was texting all through Christmas, right? I recognise you, Blake’s been stalking you on Instagram.’
‘Oh… Uh, yeah, that’s me. Mabel.’
‘You’re in his phone as Pica.’
I bit my cheek, holding back a smile. ‘He’s in mine as Heathcliff.’
‘You guys are weird.’ She stared at me again, as if trying to see inside me.
At that moment, I realised she loved Blake as much as he loved her. Which only made the idea sprouting at the back of my mind feel even meaner. Over the past two weeks, Blake and I hadn’t talked about the League of Starlings, although I couldn’t help thinking about it when we were together. This could be my chance to get more information, something that would make it easier for me to mentally separately them from Blake. I took a tentative step towards Aspen. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Sure.’ Aspen unwound the scarf from her neck.
‘Do you know Blake’s friend Ashton Griffin?’
She paused. ‘I know the face, yeah. They’ve been hanging out for like two years. I don’t know how they met, but they were inseparable basically from day one. After he finished school, Blake just kind of bummed around for a couple of years. It wasn’t until he met Ashton that he applied to Cambridge.’
I frowned. ‘He didn’t want to go to university before then?’
Aspen hesitated. Wadding the scarf into a ball, she chucked it onto the sofa then plumped down on the armrest. ‘Look, don’t judge him, okay? Or me, for telling you, but Blake used to be a massive arsehole.’ She pulled a face. ‘I mean, he was really horrible. Plus he was a total fuck-up–if it hadn’t been for Mumand Dad, he’d definitely have been arrested, like, a lot. Drink-driving, breaking into places with his mates from school, getting into fistfights and…’ She trailed off.
I was breathing so haltingly that for a moment I couldn’t get the question out. ‘And what?’
