Theodora
is dating.
The fumbling awkwardness, the coy giggles, the furious embarrassment—all seem to be a problem of the past. Everyone seems older and bolder. Everyone wants attention and affection. Everyone, in short, is touch-starved and horny.
There are a few exceptions to the rules, like the most erudite students of our year—the students I can only assume are under immense pressure from their parents to excel academically—or the unwanted outcasts, like Sophie Sutton, whose parents work for Spearcrest, or a couple of scholarship boys.
The final exception is girls who are in the same boat as me. Girls whose parents are religious or strict or consider the future of their families and businesses. At first, I assume those girls are just like me, sticking safely away from boys and dating.
Then, one day, completely at random, I walk into an empty maths classroom to look for a workbook.
Two students are sitting at a desk: a boy I don’t know and Camille Alawi—whom I know quite well. Like me, she’s strictly forbidden from dating. Like me, she has strict and religious parents. She even wears a small golden cross at all times. She’s been telling anyone who’ll listen that she’s not allowed to date and that there’s not a single good-looking boy in Spearcrest anyway.
But when I enter the classroom, she stands up so fast her chair falls, clattering back. Her cheeks are bright red, half-hidden by the black curls framing her face. Eyes wide with panic, she looks from me to the boy and then runs out of the classroom.
The boy, as red-faced as she was, stands as soon as she leaves. Still frozen by the door, I watch him as he fixes himself and buttons up his trousers. The bulge underneath the fabric is obvious to anybody who might look, so I raise my eyes to the ceiling as he mumbles incoherent apologies and sidles past me.
The door clicks shut behind him.
This is when I realise that not everybody who’s saying they’re not dating is, in fact, not dating. It’s of no comfort to me—if anything, I feel more isolated than ever.
My group of friends are the most popular, and therefore desirable, girls in the year. Giselle Frossard, the French flirt, flits from boy to boy with blithe indifference and becomes the first one of us to have sex. Kayana Kilburn, who’s arguably the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen in my life, ends up in a long-term relationship with the Montcroix heir, one of Zachary’s best friends. Camille Alawi, for all her claims of innocence, seems to have boys following her around like puppies.
Even Seraphina Rosenthal, who is the most immature of us all, is going on dates in private places and coming back full of giggly, naughty stories.
The stress of keeping up with them is a problem I never thought I would ever need to deal with. For a while, I consider taking a page out of Camille’s book, except in reverse: telling everybody I’m dating while I’m really doing anything but.
But the fear of my father finding out—somehow—is too paralysing to allow me to pursue such a reckless plan. So I endure the endless questions and gentle mockery from my friends and eventually earn my title of ice queen.
I make a new friend—a real one, this time.
During the summer, my father informed me in an imperious tone that my uncle would be sending his daughter, Inessa, to Spearcrest. When my father refers to someone as my uncle, I’m never quite sure what it means. Both relatives and friends, so long as they are close to him, are referred to as my uncles, and since I can’t quite bring myself to speak to him, I never find out whether or not Inessa is my real cousin.
And then I meet her, and it doesn’t matter at all. Because Inessa doesn’t feel like a friend or a cousin.
She feels like a sister.
She’s a pale, thoughtful girl, introverted and principled. Even though she’s a year younger than me, she intimidates me a little with how serious she is. But, unlike my Spearcrest friends, Inessa likes to talk about real things.
As we grow closer, we talk about our parents, our homes, Russia. She tells me about her siblings, and I tell her about my grandparents.
Like me, Inessa is a hard worker and an avid reader, although she favours religious and historical texts, whereas I favour poetry and literature. Still, that makes our conversations more interesting. Soon, I find myself seeking her out, spending my precious free time sitting on her bed or strolling through the lawns, talking about our lives at Spearcrest, our plans for the future.
“I can’t wait to go to university,” I tell her one day. “I hope I get to study in Oxford—it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”
“Would you not like to come to Russia?” Inessa asks, turning her big grey eyes up at me. “You could go to St Petersburg University—it is the oldest and greatest university in Russia, you know.”
“I never thought of it,” I said. “My Russian isn’t great, I’m not fluent like you.”
“I could teach you if you wanted.”
I smile. “As if either of us has the time.”
“I would make the time for you, Dora,” Inessa said, squeezing my arm. “If it means I can still see you after we leave Spearcrest.”
I squeeze her arm and say nothing, but there’s a little ache that sets in my heart that day.
of my friendship with Inessa is a luxury I soon can’t afford anyway. There’s simply no time.
Since I ended Year 9 tying with Zachary at the top of every class for the third year running, I’m determined to win outright this year. So I double my efforts with everything I possibly can, and I work harder than I ever have before.
But for every victory I painstakingly earn, Zachary sweeps by and effortlessly gets his own.
I come out on top of the class in chemistry in the winter exams, but Zachary gets invited to Doctor Zheng’s Advanced Physics for upper school students. I become captain of my debate team, but Zachary becomes captain of his. I become a prefect, but Zachary wins at a national chess tournament. A teacher enters some of my creative writing pieces into a national competition, which I win, but Zachary writes an essay on the myth of Echo and Narcissus in Latin class that receives full marks and ends up in a display case outside Mr Ambrose’s office.
I don’t resent Zachary his successes—they drive mine, after all.
What I resent is the ease with which Zachary achieves those successes. He never seems tired, or overworked, or stressed. He looks as if every challenge is something he embraces, even relishes. Worst of all, he seems to be enjoying himself.
Spearcrest is a furnace, and the heat of it is forming Zachary into a diamond—strong and brilliant.
As for me—I’m just burning alive.
