I wanted to be angry with him, I really did, but the second I turned around and saw Colin, who’d followed me out of the hall, every ounce of my self-respect disappeared into thin air.
I’m still raging, but I’m exhausted by the weekend with my parents, after two days when I couldn’t show any emotion.The time was mostly made up of conversations with Mum and Dad, who both cried and kept reassuring me that they loved me.I didn’t cry.It’s as though finding out that I’ve been fooling myself has flicked some switch inside me.
All these months, all these sleepless nights where I was wondering what to do, were for nothing.I seriously believed my family would get through this.That Mum would come back and everything would be the same as ever.But I never dreamed that Dad had moved on too.The woman, Nathalie, is also a doctor—he met her a couple of weeks ago at a conference in London.Maybe I should be happy for them, but I’m just scared, and I don’t even know what of.
It sounds like a cliché whenever they promise that nothingwill change, but it’s not that far from the truth: I’ll still be at this school.Eventually, there’ll be a few awkward dinners when I get to know Alexis and Nathalie; I might hate them, but I might find them surprisingly nice—after all, if my parents like them, they must basically be good people, right?But I don’t want to.I don’t want any of it.I want to stick my fingers in my ears when Mum and Dad talk aboutoptions, when they say stuff that sounds like they read it in clever online articles.“Ten Top Tips for Telling Your Kids You’re Getting a Divorce as Painlessly as Possible.”
It’s not painless.It’s the exact opposite.And I’m asking myself more and more often if this isn’t just some weird fever dream, especially since I’ve been back at school and finding it so hard to get myself together.
Luckily for me, I haven’t seen Tori and the others.They’d have known right away that something was up.It was naive of me to think Colin wouldn’t notice.I realize that the moment I see him again in assembly.
He doesn’t say a word, just sits on his seat, but when a muscle tenses in his jaw, I know he guesses something.He looks as if he wants to get up, maybe to run away again—he’s got form for that—but he can’t while Mrs.Sinclair is talking about the school centenary.Even now, I’m dreading the overemotional speeches about how this place can survive anything.Storms, natural disasters, the fire.Colin, standing in front of me and going pale at the sight of my scars.I’d never have dreamed anything could hurt as much as the moment he broke eye contact and left.It feels like that was weeks ago, yet the memory is way too intense.
But now he’s standing here in the uniform that makes a newColin of him, messed-up hair, breathless, and I can see on his face that his weekend must have been just as dire as mine.
I didn’t want to tell him about the shit with my parents, but obviously I do.And then I weep in his arms, and this time, he stays.
He holds me tight, like he did that awful night when I saw the person he hides so skillfully behind his cynicism and don’t-give-a-shit persona.The person I need, and today, I have him.
“Come on,” he says quietly as voices and laughter move closer.Colin takes my hand in his and pulls me gently along with him.We walk fast.He keeps his head down.His hand is warm, the wind chilly on my wet cheeks.I wipe my tears away as we walk through the arcades and across the inner courtyard.He doesn’t take his eyes off me over breakfast or in class.I can’t concentrate on anything and breathe a sigh of relief at an unexpected free period this afternoon, when my physio is canceled.After lunch with the others, we head straight from the dining room to the east wing.
“To your room?”Colin glances at me as we reach the stairs.I nod without a second’s hesitation.It’s ages till study hour, but even that wouldn’t stop me staying with him.Part of me wants to fight this, but I have to be close to him.I can’t sit alone in my room just now, and I doubt that I’ve got the mental strength to knock on Tori’s door and tell her about my parents either.Or even to speak at all.
Colin seems to feel something similar because, once we’ve made it to the corridor and he’s shut my bedroom door behind us, we face each other wordlessly.His eyes take me in, then rest on my face.I want to say so much to him, but I don’t.All I feel is the longing that makes me forget how disappointed I am inhim.He needs to make it up to me, and he can do it this way for all I care.Whatever.And he does.
He shakes his head gently, taking a step toward me, which makes my stomach flip.His hands find my face, and he presses his lips to mine, then presses me against the wall.I melt into his touch and his hot tongue as it parts my lips while he sets his fingers under my chin.My eyelids close automatically, my hands find him.I dig my fingers into the fabric of his blazer and pull him closer by the lapels.
There’s something between us, a magnetism that’s more than just attraction.The feeling that I’ll lose my mind if Colin stops pressing against me now, his hips against my belly.His mouth swallows my slight gasp as I feel him.
I push my hands under his blazer, and now he lets go of me to pull it off and drop it heedlessly to the floor.Our kisses are hungry and fast, mouths wrestling with each other, but the gentleness of his touch is out of step.His fingers are warm, his muscles hard.I’m kissing Colin Fantino in my room, and I know where this is going.
But then I think about what happened last time we were together in a room.It was his room, and the images are suddenly so vivid in my mind’s eye that my blood runs cold again.
Colin must feel it because he stops at once.
I hesitate, but decide it’s better to get this over with before I weaken again.
He shudders as I glide my hands from the back of his neck, across his shoulders, and down his arms.
Colin understands.I grab his wrists before he can pull themaway from me.He jerks up his head and looks at me, and I see the panic in his brown eyes.I hate that I’m doing this, but I’d hate myself even more if I ignored it.
“Colin,” I plead, in a whisper.He shuts his eyes.His jaw grinds as I undo his cuff buttons and push up his sleeves.The part of me that kept kidding that I’d misinterpreted everything breaks soundlessly as I see the burns on his forearms.
When I raise my head, he avoids my eyes.He tenses his shoulders and snatches away his hands.He turns his head and pulls his sleeves down.
“Colin,” I repeat; he still won’t look at me.
“Stop saying my name like that,” he growls, and here we are again, three steps back, just a few seconds after we were kissing.
“Saying it like what?”
“So sympathetic.”His voice sounds sharp, but as he looks up, I see the fear peeping through his protective walls.
“Why?”I ask.
“Why what?”
“Why do you do it?”
