Evan
Zachary down in the corner of the library where he tends to spend his free periods nowadays. It’s snowing pretty heavily outside, and I stomp my feet at the entrance and brush the snow off my shoulders before going in. Even though I don’t spend much time in the Spearcrest library, it is practically hallowed ground here, and I know better than to track snow everywhere.
Inside, everything is warm and brown and gold, the silence undisturbed and the air rich with the smell of paper and leather.
Zachary is in his usual spot at a desk hidden amongst bookshelves, and I pull a chair to sit next to him. He doesn’t look up from the essay he’s calmly typing into his laptop.
“Well?” I prompt him.
“Well, what?” he asks, raising an eyebrow but not looking away from his essay.
“Well, what happened yesterday?”
Zachary stops typing. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, you jackass. Tutoring. Bea told me that she was tutoring you before she swapped with Sophie.”
“Yes,” Zachary nods. “It went well, thank you.”
I glare at him. He ignores me, so I shove my face against his so that he can see my frown from up close.
“What do you want, exactly?” Zachary says, pushing my face away from his with one hand. “Do you want a minute-by-minute breakdown of everything that happened during our session?”
I nod eagerly. “That would be a great start!”
“Well, we met in E30, I was reading some critical theory essays of Jane Austen, you know, the anthology you’ve never touched?”
I roll my eyes at him and he continues. “Then Sophie came in, she sat down. I told her about my academic goals in regard to English Literature. We swapped copies of Persuasion to share notes, then exchanged our critical theory notes based on the reading we’d done. We did this for two hours. At the end of the two hours, I thanked her and left.”
“And then?”
“And then, what? Then I went to eat supper, went back to my room, did some more work and went to sleep. I wore my bespoke blue pyjamas that you always make fun of.”
“I don’t care about any of that!”
“Then don’t ask!”
We glare at each other. But Zachary isn’t stupid, he knows what I want to know. He’s just choosing to be obtuse, probably because my torment amuses him. My stare turns into a glare.
“What did Sophie say about me?”
Zachary shakes his head. “Nothing at all. She didn’t mention you once.”
“What! What did you say?”
“About you?”
“Yeah!”
“We met so that she could tutor me for English Literature, not to discuss the long and complex history between you two.”
I’m almost speechless from the shock of this betrayal. “You didn’t mention me?”
“Was I supposed to?”
“You’re—argh! Zach! Those tutoring sessions are meant to be mine!”
Zachary shrugs. “Is it my fault you made her quit?”
“I didn’t—” I start defending myself then stop since it’s not entirely wrong that I made Sophie quit. “Alright, I messed up, but now she’s tutoring you, I thought you could—why don’t you—”
“What is it you want me to do, exactly?”
“I don’t know, help me! Be my wingman or whatever.”
“How so?”
I throw my hands up in a helpless gesture. “Fuck, I don’t know! Just try to explain to her she made a mistake, that I do care about my tutoring and that—and that—”
“Let me make one thing clear: my priority in those sessions is the actual tutoring. Your pitiful love dealings are very much secondary to my goals.”
“You don’t even need tutoring!” I glare at him. “I swear you’re one of the best students in the class.”
“I’m not the best, though,” Zachary says, looking away with a sniff.
My eyes narrow as I draw closer, peering at him. “Is this about Theodora?”
Zachary clears his throat and flushes ever so slightly. On a normal person, it would be barely noticeable, but since Zachary is about as emotionless and unshakeable as a robot made from titanium, it becomes immediately obvious this subject matter is of great embarrassment to him.
“Oh God—so because of your weird obsession with Theodora you get to keep Sophie to yourself and not even help me get her back?”
“Evan,” Zachary says, completely deadpan, “she’s tutoring me in English, not getting married to me.”
“I know.” I drop my head into my hands. “But at least it’s an excuse to see her. I don’t even have that anymore, and we’re more than halfway through the year! I’m running out of fucking time.”
Zachary hesitates then relents. “Why don’t you drop me off at the next session before you go to yours?”
I raise my head. “And then what?”
“And then… I don’t know. Just say something nice to her, and then leave. Like this, you get to see her, and she still gets the space she clearly needs from you.”
I tap my chin, thinking about his proposal. “It’s actually not a bad idea. Maybe I do need to give her space. She did tell me to stay out of her life.”
“Oh, she did?”
I groan. “Ugh, she did. And I told her I liked her.”
Zachary’s eyebrows shoot up. “You did?”
“Yeah.”
“She told you to get out of her life and so you decided to tell her you like her?”
“No, the opposite.”
“You said you like her and then she told you to get out of her life?” Zachary pulls a face. “That’s cold, even for her.”
“Well, no. I said I like her, and then I said I could have any girl. Then she said: good, have every girl you want and stay out of my life.”
Zachary rubs his face with a long-suffering sigh. “Why are you like this?”
“If you were there, you’d understand! It was so fucking stressful. I basically completely opened myself up to her and put my cards on the table and then she looked down at my cards and tossed them right off the table! She told me she despises me. She didn’t even address the fact I like her, as if my feelings don’t count because I’m me. What was I going to do, beg?”
“Beg is certainly what you’ll end up having to do if you keep fucking things up this spectacularly.”
“I’m not going to beg,” I snap, glaring at Zachary.
He smirks. “You weren’t going to apologise either, remember?”
“Apologising and begging are two completely different things.”
“Right. Well, time will tell, won’t it?”
I keep glaring at him but he doesn’t seem too bothered. He turns back to his laptop with a dismissive flap of his hand. “Now get out of here, Ev. I’ve got work to do. Be on time tomorrow if you still want to drop me off at my tutoring session.”
“Alright, alright. I’ll text you.”
He gives a curt nod, and I leave. I’m too wound up to go back to my room, and it’s snowing too thickly to go for a run, so I end up going to the gym. But even the gym can’t distract me from the pressure of tomorrow’s meeting, and I end up spending the rest of the evening thinking about what to say to Sophie when I see her.
And that’s particularly challenging to do when all I can think about is kissing her and fucking her against a window while it snows outside.
Sophie
with Zachary, I turn up fifteen minutes early. Since he arrived first at our last session, it’s a point of pride for me to be there first this time.
I settle myself in the empty classroom, a paper cup of coffee nestled in my hands, my copy of Persuasion propped against my pencil case. The door opens a few minutes later, and Zach strolls in with long, crisp steps. In his wake, hands in his pockets and hair flopping so low it’s a wonder he can see where he’s going, is Evan Knight.
I look away immediately, but his presence glows from the corner of my vision like a flare. It’s heightened by the memory of our last encounter.
Evan was definitely easier to ignore before I found out how good he is with his stupid mouth.
“Uh, hi, Sutton.” His sheepish drawl interrupts my thoughts.
I’m reluctant to appear shaken in front of Zachary. I certainly don’t want to give him the satisfaction of witnessing any drama between Evan and me—especially after the embarrassing scene in the rec room.
“Hi, Evan.”
“I’m just dropping Zach off,” he explains uselessly.
I glance at Zachary, whose expression is completely blank as he unpacks his bag.
“That’s very kind of you,” I say, trying my best not to sound too sarcastic.
How he thinks we’re going to be exchanging pleasantries after what happened during our last meeting is beyond me.
“I wanted to say thanks for all the tutoring so far,” he says, his voice both airy and a little strangled. “You were honestly a really good teacher and pretty much the only person to ever make Shakespeare sound interesting.”
I stare at him, blinking slowly. His blue eyes are fixed on mine, and there is a dark pink flush smeared all over his cheeks. He’s not smiling—he looks totally honest. It’s not hard for lies to sprout out of Evan like water from a fountain, but he doesn’t sound at all like he’s lying.
And he’s embarrassing himself in front of another Young Kings, which is probably a risky move.
Maybe this is a clever gambit: he’s taking a loss now for a later victory I can’t quite see yet. But no matter how little I trust what he’s saying, it’s still pretty good to hear—and that’s the real danger when it comes to Evan.
No matter how much we hate each other, he can always figure out ways of making me feel good.
“No need to thank me,” I respond with as much formality as I can muster. “I’m glad I could help.”
“Zach is lucky to have you. If anybody can help him beat Theodora, it’s definitely you.”
Zachary finally reacts, throwing a quick glare Evan’s way.
I shrug. “Um, I’ll do my best.”
I try to keep my answer noncommittal; I don’t want to give Zach promises I can’t guarantee. He seems the vindictive kind, and I’m not looking to be hearing from the Blackwood lawyers anytime soon.
“Well, I better go to my own session,” Evan says, running his hand through his distracting mop of sandy hair. “I’m going to make sure your time wasn’t wasted, okay? I’ll do everything I can to pass Lit.”
He gives me this unnecessarily intense look, like there’s fire in his eyes and he’s trying to burn me with it. Not sure of what to say, I can only nod.
He sighs, long and deep and tragic, and leaves.
I turn back to Zachary, who is shaking his head with an expression of disbelief on his face. His mouth opens, but words don’t come out. He shrugs, straightens his tie, and looks at me.
“Right, shall we do some essay work today?”
Thank god Zachary is so business-like, because this strange interaction with Evan has completely turned my mind upside down, exposing the very raw, very insistent memories of our kisses and my orgasms and our arguments, and I desperately need the distraction.
“So,” I explain, “I annotated our exam questions with the suggestions from the mark schemes and examiners’ reports. I was thinking you could have a go at planning your responses and then comparing with the exam board suggestions?”
He nods curtly. “That sounds excellent. Let’s get to it.”
Once more, we settle into a mostly silent session. Zachary writes up his essay plans in meticulous, spidery handwriting while I read. After that, we do some timed essay practice, reducing our time every round to force ourselves to write faster. Near the end of the session, we swap our work to critique it, take notes, and then it’s time to go.
Zachary packs away with very little ceremony and then gets up.
“Thank you for today. That was very helpful.”
He sounds like he means it and I can’t help but feel proud. I nod. “You’re welcome.”
“Shall we do another Austen session next Tuesday and then switch to poetry on Thursday?” he asks.
“Yes, sounds good. I’ll prep some stuff over the weekend.”
“Alright. Have a good rest of the week.”
“You too.”
Zachary strides out exactly as he came in, with long, crisp steps. It’s funny how easy it is to forget he is a Young King; he couldn’t be more different to the rest of them. He works hard, cares about his grades, and doesn’t seem to be all that interested in popularity.
Of course, he could be coming across this way because it’s me he’s spending this time with, and it’s not exactly like I hold the key to popularity at Spearcrest.
But of course, this is me just overthinking things as usual. I have plenty of things to worry about without wasting my time thinking about the Young Kings, especially when the Young Kings are little more than a childish fantasy that’s going to fade into thin air the moment we leave Spearcrest.
And soon, there isn’t time to worry about anything much at all.
February sets in, brutally cold, depressingly dark. It snows pretty much non-stop, and with the second wave of mock exams rising high as it prepares to crash down upon us, we’re all feeling the mounting pressure. The library is always full, even when I end up staying there until late at night, and even the austere study hall is fuller than usual.
“You think this is hard, and it is,” our Maths teacher says one afternoon after hitting us with an impromptu pre-mock mock exam. “But half of you here are Oxbridge candidates, and I can guarantee you that no matter how stressed you are right now, it’s nothing compared to what you’ll go through next year.”
It’s a chilling reminder, and something that stays with me long after he says it, but it barely helps. I’m so tired I fall asleep every other night without even realising, fully clothed at my desk, and wake up in the morning with a gasp of shock thinking it’s still two in the morning. I barely look in the mirror anymore because I know I look like a zombie.
Luckily, almost everyone in our year looks half-undead too.
Almost everyone.
Ever since he dropped Zachary off that time, Evan has been keeping up the strange new routine. Lingering by the doorway to give me long, insistent looks, asking me how I am and bringing me cups of coffee.
It’s awkward, and maybe I’m going slightly mad from exhaustion, but after a while, it becomes almost endearing. Until I realise that he doesn’t have a hint of a shadow under his eyes, his skin is completely clear and smooth and instead of losing weight like half the students in our year group, he seems to be filling out with new muscles every time I see him.
On the Thursday of the week before the mock exams, Evan is standing in the doorway, as usual, eating an apple as shiny and healthy-looking as he is. I stare at him in baffled shock, not hearing a thing he’s saying.
“Do you even know we have mocks next week?” I burst out, more out of sheer bafflement than anger.
He blinks. “Yeah? I have five exams next week, starting Monday. You?”
“Five, too.” I narrow my eyes. “You’re not worried about your exams?”
He brushes his hand through his hair in that distracted, distracting way and gives a slightly embarrassed smile. “I’m mostly worried about Lit, for obvious reasons.” Then he checks his watch and sighs deeply. “Ugh, talking of which. I should probably go to my session.”
But he lingers in the doorway, his eyes fixed on mine. His blue eyes send the memory of his face between my legs like a war flashback through my mind.
“I wanted to say…” Evan’s voice is soft and low. “I wanted to say that I… that you…” he looks at Zachary, then at me. He gulps, shakes his head and then smiles. “I wanted to say good luck with the exams.”
“Oh, um, good luck to you too.”
He nods and then leaves, his presence lingering after he’s gone like the last caress of heat after the sun goes down.
“He is worried.”
Zachary’s voice surprises me. I turn to look at him. “Pardon?”
“He is worried. About exams. Especially Lit, like he said. He’s been coming with me to the library every evening to revise.”
“I don’t understand how anybody at this point of the school year can look like him,” I say, completely truthfully. “He looks the exact opposite of how I feel.”
“That’s just how he is,” Zachary says with a sigh. “Must be some strong genetics at play there. But just because he looks like this doesn’t mean he’s not stressed and worried and sad like the rest of us mere mortals.”
I stare at Zachary. He’s not looking at me; he’s unpacking his books and folders, laying them neatly in front of me.
His words remind me of Evan in his big house during the Christmas holiday, ambling around in his undecorated house, bored and aimless and alone. It sends an uncomfortable twinge of something guilt-like through me.
I drop my gaze to the cover of my notebook and mumble, “I didn’t think he cared about Lit.”
Zachary laughs, cold and mirthless. “Well, he wants to do well in the exams, but it’s not exactly Lit he cares about, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
Zachary looks up at me, raises an eyebrow, and then sits back in his chair, crossing his arms.
“It’s you, okay? It’s you he cares about, it’s you he’s stressed and worried and sad about. It’s always been you. He’s liked you for the longest time, pretty much never stopped. Even when he was dating other girls, it was always you he was thinking and talking about. It was quite irksome, actually.”
I’m almost numb with shock and disturbed by hearing this come out of Zachary’s mouth, of all people. My words coagulate on my tongue, thick like tar. In the end, I can’t say anything other than, “What?”
Zachary shrugs. “I don’t even know if he knows it, but he’s liked you since you guys were friends.”
“He never said anything,” I say, my voice so low it’s almost a whisper.
“Well, no. You’re rather intimidating, as far as girls go, and I’m pretty sure he was too thick back then to realise he liked you. He’s worked hard ever since to get over you, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. But I suppose it was always a matter of time until his obsession won out.”
I’m too shocked to say anything, and Zachary gives me a level look and adds, “Still, none of this makes up for the way he treated you, so you’re right to reject him. It’s just been annoying me that you didn’t know. But now you know, and we can move on.”
I nod, absent-mindedly taking the essay he hands me.
And even though we spend the next two hours working, when I leave the session it’s not Austen and literary analysis my mind is full of.
