Page 41 of Yearning Difficulties

‘There’s just something about the way they attack the door. The lion saying, “We’ve gotta get her out,” in that really worried tone. The tinman hitting the door so hard with his axe . . . They’re just so desperate to get her free. You can feel the urgency through the screen. It’s incredible! Their friendship is the love story at the heart of the whole thing. They’re a fellowship.’

I didn’t even need to say it. Maybe it was so obvious because of the yearning in my voice. But that was all I’d ever wanted. A fellowship. A group that was so tightly bound together, no one even dreamed of trying to split them apart. I might have played a princess in Dad’s autumnal tournament show, but I never dreamed about a prince with a white horse. I dreamed of friends. Unconditional love. The kind that could hold you up when you dropped.

I wanted it more than anything.

‘That’s really nice.’

His voice jolted me out of my melancholy. ‘What is?’

‘The way you talk about your best friend. Max is lucky. Really lucky.’

I made a small bitter sound. ‘Lucky.’

‘She is. To have someone like you caring about her.’

We didn’t say anything more for the remainder of the journey. Cherry’s eerily beautiful voice sang ‘What’ll I Do’ by Irving Berlin and we listened to it in silence. When he dropped me at my house, I felt strangely as though I wanted to give him something.

But everything felt fragile. Emotions that had been opaque were now glasslike. Breakable.

Maybe it was because he was the first person to ask me about Max. No one else ever talked about her. It was like people were forgotten, once they left Lake Pristine.

For a moment, Killian had brought her back to me.

Fifteen

Interview

Today’s Track: ‘Should I Stay’ by Gabrielle

The next day I was late to first period, which was English with Mr Hamilton.

The rest of the class were milling about the room and I was relieved to see that despite my lateness, our leader had yet to arrive. Killian was sitting on his desk and when he saw me, coatless, he gave me a small, almost undetectable nod of approval.

People watched him as he sauntered over to me.

‘All right,’ I said, under my breath. ‘Your move.’

I looked up into his face. It was true what people said, he had a large nose and strong features. Not necessarily pretty features, but they were striking. And he smelled incredible. I suddenly felt my confidence shiver a little.

‘Pretend like you’re really cold,’ he murmured.

I raised an eyebrow but didn’t rebuff him. I gave a stupid little tremble and rubbed my biceps with my open palms. He winked once, when no one could see, then turned back to his desk. He dug in his bag for something, and then offered me a black mass of fabric.

Oh.

He was giving me his hoodie.

It was black, oversized and – I smelled it – clean. But it definitely smelled like him. Everyone in class could see him presenting it to me. They all stared at us, silently wondering if I would reach out and take it.

So I did. I slipped into it and made a big show of inhaling the fabric. He gave me a small smirk of admiration.

‘Well played, Red,’ he muttered.

I rolled up the long sleeves of his hoodie and waited for him to go back to his desk. But he hovered. We both did. For a moment, neither of us seemed to care about the people watching. I wanted to lessen the intensity of the moment and congratulate him on the ingenuity of this move – such a deceptively casual way to cement what we were in the eyes of our fellow classmates.

But I couldn’t seem to make light of it.

At that very moment, the door opened to reveal Dave Valvert, Logan Minola and Sterling Cavendish. Like three aristocrats, they caused the room to fall into silence. Dave scowled at Killian and me, pushing between us so that we were forced further apart. Just behind, Sterling was clinging to Logan’s arm, though he looked apathetic to her attentions.