Andrew glanced back down at his hand.
No blood. Only a lattice of thin, white scars.
Thomas dropped onto the mattress beside Andrew, and they both stared at his hand for a minute. Then Thomas traced from the tips of Andrew’s fingers down to his wrist.
A shiver shot down Andrew’s spine. He had to breathe out hard to hide it.
“It healed well,” Thomas said. “The scars almost look like lace. Do you still want to sneak out? We don’t have to.”
Andrew pulled away and reached for his sweater. “You owe me like seven hundred answers.”
“It’ll feel wrong to go without Dove.” Thomas said it so softly, Andrew paused with his sweater half tangled over his head.
When he turned back, Thomas still sat on Andrew’s bed, his head bowed, fingers picking at old, dried paint on his jeans. Out of school uniform, he always looked lawless, as if the loss of rigid lines turned him into a passionate painting spilled all over a page.
Well, this meant Thomas and Dove hadn’t fixed their argument, but if they were in a fight, they weren’t kissing. He hated himself for the selfish relief. “I still want to.”
They climbed out the window, feet wedged in the cracks between bricks, hands gripping window frames and trellises to lower themselves down. Thomas first, then Andrew, dropping into a crouch on the dewy grass. The night was cool for September, but then Andrew was always cold. Everything felt more alive out here. An energy thrummed between the rosebushes and up through the ivy-covered walls.
There was a stickiness to the shadows, the night so dark that staring into it made Andrew feel unsteady. A shadow moved withthe softest scrape of scales against gravel before slithering out of sight around the dorms. Hair prickled at the back of Andrew’s neck, but he scrubbed his eyes and shook himself. He wasn’t properly awake, was all. Nothing breathed out here but them.
They took off, the velvet dark cloaking them. Both had notebooks in hand, and Andrew had shoved a packet down his sweater at the last minute. Plastic crinkled as he walked, and Thomas mimed at him to hush several times before giving up and hiding his laugh. They crept through the deserted gardens to the sheds and used a firewood stack to climb onto a low roof. Thomas’s sweater rode up, his bare stomach scraping against tiles. A hiss escaped him before he rolled out of the way.
Andrew vaulted up behind him.
“Stop doing that so easily,” Thomas muttered.
“Start growing.” Andrew pulled a packet of Tim Tams from under his shirt. “Surprise.”
“Oh,yes, yes, you freaking godsentsaint.”
Andrew bit back a laugh as Thomas snatched the Tim Tams and then scurried like a goblin over the roof. They’d discovered this spot back in freshman year, when Thomas realized no windows from any of the dorms or the school manor overlooked the neat little garden sheds. It was rebellion, but safe. Even Dove allowed it instead of doling out her usual lectures about Thomas’s rule breaking.
The way she clung to rules and Thomas mocked them fueled most of their wars, but Andrew suspected they fought because they liked it. Or because Dove needed the relief of an excuse to be less than perfect for a second. Or because Thomas only knew how to bite people for attention.
Andrew settled on his back next to Thomas. The slope was gentle, the tiles cushioned by decades of moss and papered with old leaves.
“I bought original because you have low standards anyway,” he said.
“True.” Thomas tore into the packet. Tim Tams were nothing more than malted biscuits with a creamy filling, dipped in chocolate and then blessed by an Australian brand name, but for some reason Thomas worshipped them.
“They’re not even that good,” Andrew said.
“Be disrespectful somewhere else. If I eat enough, I willturnAustralian. I will be abloke.”
Andrew jabbed Thomas in the ribs. “I’ll take them back.”
“You can’t if I lick them all. Actually wait, I’ll give you one and you give me your notebook.”
“One, wow.” But Andrew passed over his notebook.
This was their tradition, a chance to cram in updates about everything they’d missed over the summer. Without Dove, it did feel strange, but so what if Andrew had Thomas to himself for once? It was an excuse to lie beside each other, skin brushing skin, knee pressed against leg. Only the stars could judge.
Thomas sat up and nestled Andrew’s notebook on his lap, handing over his own sketchbook. “Give us some light.”
Andrew obliged, propping his phone on his knees so a soft glow bathed their swapped books.
An extraordinary amount of intimacy lay in exchanging art. Not for critique and not for class. Just to look. To feel. To understand each other.
