Ashton blinked. His hands balled into fists as he leant back. ‘He told you about Piper and the others? That’s… interesting.’
‘Not the word I’d choose.’ Even now, I couldn’t follow the thought to its logical conclusion. It felt unwieldy, painfully sharp. Every time I tried to force it to the surface of my mind, it tore another hole through my memories of Blake, memories that were still more tender than they should have been. It was stupid: you could hate someone, but it still didn’t change the feelings you’d once had for them. Some emotions couldn’t be put right. The same was true of mistakes. Maybe that meant emotions more generally were a mistake. The ones I’d had for Blake definitely were.
Ashton looked out of the window, beyond which the college had receded into shadow. At long last he shook his head, as if he’d given up trying to understand something, and shifted his focus back to me. ‘Whatever. You shouldn’t be hanging out with him anyway. You should be hanging out with me.’
I gave a breathless noise, a snort and laugh rolled into one. Of all the weird shit I’d heard Ashton say, this was by far his most absurd idea yet. ‘Why the hell would I do that?’
‘To make an unbiased judgement–see if maybe I’m a good guy, after all. Come on, just go for dinner with me. You can ask me all the questions you’ve been stewing over for weeks, and I promise I’ll answer them honestly.’ He smiled, gazing at me with those beautiful thick-lashed eyes.
It was strange–his almost angelic looks were so at odds with his personality. Not that I knew all the details of it, of course, but I didn’t have to. I’d got the rough gist from the beginning, and that was all I needed to know. He’d brought so much grief to other people, including my best friends. Whatever positive qualities he might have, nothing could outweigh that.
Still, I was loath to turn him down. I’d never really hung out with Ashton alone, and although I was sure he wasn’t telling me the truth, sometimes just catching someone in a lie was informative enough in itself. Besides, I was out of leads. I couldn’t learn much more about the League from external sources, and Ashton was offering me a last chance to discover more. I had no idea what he was hoping to get out of it, but ultimately what mattered was whatIgot out of it. As long as we stayed somewhere public, he couldn’t do anything to me. It was worth a shot.
Slowly I got to my feet. ‘Let’s get one thing straight: there is absolutely no way I am ever going to sleep with you.’
Ashton laughed warmly, revealing dimples in his cheeks. ‘I don’t know what you usually do for dinner, but that’s not what I had in mind. I just thought we could have an innocent little chat. Let’s try to bury the hatchet. For Zoe.’
This is not a good idea, warned a voice inside my head. My gut was screaming at me to listen, but I forced myself to nod. ‘Okay. Fine.’
Ashton’s smile shifted–fleetingly, almost imperceptibly, in a way I couldn’t quite define. Yet my stomach knotted, because my first thought was:triumphantly. ‘Great. How about tomorrow night? Around eight?’
‘All right,’ I said, although I felt anything but.
Ashton nodded and rose to leave. ‘I’ll pick you up.’ His hand made a move outwards, towards me. Instinctively I reached for my throat, pressing my fingers to it, although I couldn’t have explained why. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to let Ashton touch me. In any way, shape or form.
His eyes narrowed, but he stopped and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘Until tomorrow, then. I can hardly wait–just you and me, all evening. A frank, open conversation.’
* * *
Around nine o’clock I went into the shared kitchen to empty my half-full mug and wash it. Just as I was putting it back on the shelf, I noticed a flicker of something pale on the terrace, and realised suddenly that the door wasn’t locked, it was just pushed to. A cold gust of wind shuddered through the loose knit of my cardigan as I opened it. There was someone standing outside. A lone silhouette, just below the dimly glowing bulbs of the fairy lights we’d strung above the tables.
A moment passed before I recognised her. Hurriedly, I slid the door all the way open. ‘Zoe? What are you doing out here?’
She turned to me with a bewildered look. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered as I reached her. ‘I feel almost… nothing. I feel almost nothing.’ Slowly she stretched out her arms and examined her hands. She wore no jacket, shoes or socks, just velvet trousers and a woolly jumper. Her hair was coming loose from a straggly bun and her face was bare of make-up, palely radiant in the darkness. ‘It’s cold, isn’t it?’ she murmured, running her fingers over her bare forearm, which was covered in goosepimples. ‘Why doesn’t it feel that way?’
There was such a hard lump in my stomach that it nearly made my knees buckle. ‘You’ve been out here way too long. Your toes are all blue, you’re shivering. You need to go inside.’ I took her hands and held them. Her skin was like ice, and a chill ran through me.
Zoe was staring at our clasped fingers. ‘We love each other, right?’
I nodded firmly, although the question brought tears to my eyes. Even just the idea that she could doubt it hurt more than everything else. ‘Of course. You’re my best friend. The best I’ve ever had.’
‘And you’re mine. I know that, but then why’—she was sobbing dryly now—‘why can’t I feel it? Why don’t I feel like I love you or that you love me? Why don’t I feel angry when my mother tells me I’ve put on weight, or happy when my dad sends me photos of my dog? Why don’t I feel scared when Professor Martin says I might fail my exams, or nervous when I have to give a presentation? Why don’t I feelanythinganymore?’
Helplessness was the coldest of all emotions. In seconds it had bitten through me with its icy, crystalline teeth. It was an effort to muster up anything encouraging to say, because I knew it wouldn’t fix anything. ‘You’re not well. But you’ll get better, any day now.’
Zoe laughed and sniffled at the same time. Her eyes gleamed, as if her body wanted to cry but didn’t know how. ‘I don’t get what’s happening. What am I doing here?’
My mouth went dry when I realised what she was trying to say. That she didn’t just mean the patio, she meant… the world. And it scared me so much I couldn’t bring myself to answer. I just pulled her into a hug and held her tightly, as if I could drive away the sense we both had that she was disappearing.
‘You’re here,’ I whispered, hugging her close to me, until her cold seeped into me. Because Zoe loved those hugs, and because I desperately wanted to remind her of that. To remind her of the things she loved and hated, of who she was. ‘You’re here, and you’re you. And we’ll get through this. Trust me.’
‘You promise?’ Her voice trickled into my hair, her scent into my clothing. Her scent, which was different than normal. Less intense, less sweet, less… Zoe. There was just less Zoe there.
‘I promise,’ I replied. ‘Whatever it takes. I’ll make sure you get better.’
I stayed in her room that night. Put a hot-water bottle at her feet and read to her until she fell asleep. Then I sat beside her, watching her chest rise and fall with reassuring evenness. The candles on the bedside table cast shadows across walls dotted with polaroids, snapshots of countless memories. The laughing girl in them seemed to have little in common with the one slumped next to me on the pastel-blue sheets. At that moment I didn’t care what the League of Starlings was, or what it did. All that mattered was what Ashton had done to Zoe. Whatever it was, I would figure out a way to help her. I had to try.For Zoe.
Chapter25
