“Augustus,” he sighed. “It’s late.”
I studied him for a long moment. In the pale moonlight, his skin glistened, shadows casting wings behind him as though he were a guardian angel.
“Fine,” I breathed out. “I would appreciate that, thank you.”
Nathaniel’s car was not what I had been expecting. Since he was ‘Mr rich kid’ in my mind, I had anticipated a ‘Mr rich kid’ kind of car. And while I had no doubt his carwasexpensive, I had not expected to climb into a 1950s Bentley.
“What decade do you think we’re in?” I asked as I settled into the front passenger seat.
“Time is a man-made concept,” Nathaniel replied.
“Actually…” I started, but my words trailed off as Nathaniel started the car and music reached my ears. “What the hell is this?”
“What?”
“The music.”
Nathaniel grinned. “You don’t like St. Elmo’s Fire?”
I rolled my eyes and refused to give him a response, opting instead to look out the window, watching the blur of red lights and streetlamps.
“Did you always know you wanted to study psychology?”
The unexpected question hung in the air between us as I tried to concoct an appropriate response. To admit that I had no direct ambition, no idea what I really wanted to be, was not something I was ready for. Especially not with my rival. But Nathaniel glanced sideways at me at the traffic lights, brown eyes soft and curious, and I felt compelled to answer honestly.
“I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to…understand the way the mind works,” I said.
It was not a lie. I wanted to understand why my mother had treated me the way she had, and what had caused her to make the decision to abandon her family. There were so manycomplexities of the human mind, and I wanted to uncover each one.
“Ah,” Nathaniel clicked his tongue, “you and I are not so different after all.”
I had already drawn that same conclusion but enlightened him anyway. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, gaze briefly flickering to mine, “…we both want to understand everything there is to know about the brain. You want to be a psychologist or psychiatrist, I’m assuming, and I want to be a brain surgeon. Sure, you are going about it psychologically while I am physically, but together, we could understand itall.A brain surgeon and a clinical psychologist. A powerful team, right?”
A team. I almost scoffed. What did Nathaniel, top-of-the-class Nathaniel, want with me when I had made it clear, on numerous occasions, that I wanted nothing to do with him?
You know the saying,the Devil hummed,keep your enemies close.
“What about you?” I asked instead before the Devil’s voice could taunt me further. “Did you always want to be a brain surgeon?”
“Not at all,” Nathaniel answered, “I actually wanted to work in a museum archive or be a music teacher. I love history. And I play the piano.”
His words reminded me of Auden. He loved history and museums. I always imagined that one day he would be working in the archives or giving tours, spilling out facts he knew about an ancient civilisation or historical figure.
“So why medicine?” I asked.
“It was…always expected of me,” he said, less enthusiastic. “My dad is a heart surgeon and my mum is a lung specialist.”
“My mother was a religious fanatic who abandoned her family for a cult and my dad an alcoholic who didn’t see his kids worthliving for,” I blurted out, “we don’t have to follow the same path as our parents.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence before Nathaniel whispered, “Your mother…”
I shook my head. I did not want to talk about her. In fact, I didn’t even know why I brought her up. There was just something about Nathaniel that made it so easy to spill all your secrets. It was dangerous.Hewas dangerous.
“Is she…the reason you wanted to do our assignment on cults?” Nathaniel asked.
“No.”
