Theodora
over me like waves over the listless body of a beached sea creature. I roll and sway under their movement, longing for them to drag me away into their current.
When he dismisses us and everybody’s leaving the room, his eyes find mine, and he gives me a slight frown with a question inside of it.
“Thank you, Mr Ambrose,” I answer.
I stand and leave the room, melting into the line of students trickling out of the office.
Desperate for some fresh air and space, I make my way to the back of the building, which leads out to a small courtyard garden with four benches surrounding a small marble fountain. A hand brushes my arm, startling me.
“Hey—Theodora.”
Zachary’s warm voice is different, his stiff formality replaced with gentle worry.
I turn and look up. He’s taller than he was the last time I saw him. I’m not sure when Zachary stopped looking like a boy and started looking like a man, but that’s what he looks like now.
Brown eyes full of intelligence, framed by thick, curly eyelashes. Handsome, regal features, graceful cheekbones over carved cheeks. A tall stature, elegant posture. The emotive, romanticised masculinity of a Hellenistic statue.
My heart strains in my chest when I see him. I want to throw my arms around his neck and hang on his chest like a medallion.
My own heartbeat has felt so distant lately; would his make me feel alive again?
“Hello, Zachary.”
He caught me just as I was leaving the building. I know better than to try to escape him anyway, and I’m too light-hearted to walk back to the girls’ dormitory anyway.
So I put my arm through his with an affability that’s designed to keep him close while keeping him at arm’s length and lead him to a bench.
“Did you have a good summer?” I ask. My voice sounds faraway and mechanical. “Congratulations on being invited to Mr Ambrose’s Apostles programme, by the way.”
He watches me as I sit down but doesn’t sit straight away. His eyes search my face, but no matter how clever Zachary is, he won’t find anything in my expression.
There’s nothing there because I feel nothing inside.
“My summer was fine,” he answers finally. “Far from perfect, but adequate. Thank you for asking.”
He draws closer and takes a seat on the bench next to me. Not facing the fountain, like I’m doing, but facing me, one leg folded in front of him, the other pointing towards me, his knee against my thigh.
“How was yours?” he asks.
“Fine.” I smile. “Adequate.”
“Did you manage to finish your lit homework?”
I shrug. “I’ve barely started it.”
“That’s not like you.”
“You don’t know what is or isn’t like me.”
He lets out a chuckle like a sigh. “You’re proud of that, aren’t you?”
“Of what?”
“Of how you always manage to keep me at arm’s length. Of making sure I’m only ever one step removed from a stranger.”
I shake my head. My chest feels tight and my head the opposite, like my skull is a wide, empty space full of swirling galaxies. I’m so light-headed I’m afraid I might keel over right into the fountain, into the aquamarine water aglow with the light of underwater bulbs.
“You’re not a stranger,” I tell Zachary. “You’re my friend.”
He’s silent for a moment. Even through my torpor, I can tell he’s surprised. He raises an arm and gently cups my cheek, turning my head so I’m facing him.
“If I was your friend, you’d tell me what’s wrong.”
“I feel light-headed.”
His eyebrows rise in concern. “You do? Have you eaten dinner yet?”
I shake my head.
“You probably need to eat. What time did you have lunch?”
I shake my head again.
He sighs. “Did you not have lunch?”
“I forgot.”
It’s not quite a lie. I woke up too late for breakfast, rushed to my classes, and then was too tired to go pick up some food from the dining hall. I had two apples before going to Mr Ambrose’s office because I didn’t want to embarrass myself by swooning in front of him.
Zachary, to my surprise, doesn’t roll his eyes or tell me off.
“No wonder you’re light-headed, Theo. I’m impressed you’re still able to walk.” He brushes the hair back from my face and smiles. “Would you like to come to the dining hall and do me the honour of dining together?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to go to the dining hall.”
He watches me for a second. “Do you still prefer to eat in private?”
It’s my turn to be surprised. I didn’t expect him to remember this—I barely remember telling him.
“Alright,” he says. “Come with me.”
He gives me his hand, and I take it, letting him pull me to my feet. He guides me back into the Old Manor and into one of the empty classrooms. They are all locked at this time of day, but he has a key—I don’t know why since he isn’t a prefect and never was. The teachers probably love and trust him enough to let him have access to empty classrooms.
It’s not until he leads me to one of the desks and pulls up a chair for me that I realise he’s still holding my hand. His warmth trickles into me via our connected palms. When I sit down and he lets me go, the flow of warmth is immediately cut off.
Zachary looks down with a solemn expression. “I want you to stay here and wait for me, alright?”
I nod.
“Promise me, Theo.”
“I promise.”
He smiles and then darts out of the classroom, leaving his leather satchel in the seat next to mine. My head is still spinning, so I fold my arms on the desk and rest my forehead on them.
I close my eyes. Zachary called me Theo. He’s never called me that before.
Theo.
It’s short, boyish and affectionate. It doesn’t suit me at all, but I like it.
I like it because of the way Zachary said it, without explanation, as if my name takes enough space in his world to necessitate a nickname.
As if the lie I told him before—that we are friends—is actually the truth.
brown paper bag against his chest.
I watch him with a slight frown as he hurries back to our desk and sets the things out of his paper bag: some plates, glasses, cutlery. A bottle of wine, bread, and two containers of food still warm enough to steam up the lids.
Once his little picnic is assembled, Zachary dishes out some food on both plates and pours a little wine into both glasses.
“Where on earth did you get wine?” I ask, staring at his display.
“The kitchens, of course.”
“The kitchen staff gave you wine?”
He smiles at me—a victor’s smile, a hero’s grin. “I asked nicely.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I’m sure you won it with your charm and not just because your father is a generous financial patron of Spearcrest Academy.”
He lets out a laugh. “How long have you been keeping that particular bullet loaded in the chamber of your mind?”
As he speaks, he pulls his plate towards him and picks up a fork and knife. He doesn’t touch the second plate he made, doesn’t push it in my direction, doesn’t even point or look at it. He eats without prompting me to do the same as if it doesn’t matter to him what I do with the food he’s put on that plate.
“I wasn’t taking a shot,” I concede. “I don’t know why I feel it’s my responsibility to keep you humble.” He half-rolls his eyes with an amused smirk, so I add, “Maybe I’m just scared your ego will inflate so much you’ll explode one day.”
“I’m as modest as a monk,” Zachary replies.
“Does that make me the divinity that keeps your bald head bowed in devotion?”
“Always,” he says, “my beloved goddess.” His tone is no longer mocking but deep and sincere.
I glance down at the plate in front of me, my stomach squirming. Spoonfuls of a creamy vegetable bake and an array of greens. There’s sliced-up steak in some of the containers, but he didn’t place any on my plate. I’ve never told him I was vegetarian—but of course, Zachary would never presume to know my dietary habits.
When he calls me a goddess with such reverence, the plate he’s placed on the table in front of me, with its accompanying cut of wine and slice of bread, appears to me in a new light.
Is this Zachary’s worship? His offerings at the altar of my well-being?
I pull the plate to me and pick up my fork, staring at the food.
When I started following my mother’s dietary plans all those years ago, I was so certain I would always remain in control. I wasn’t naive, not even back then. Just like my mother, I was well aware of what an eating disorder was—I thought I was clever enough that I would never allow my relationship with food to become dysfunctional, to tilt into the territory of illness.
Maybe this is punishment for my hubris: this sickening sensation every time I look at a plate of food. The wave of panic, the desperation to ascertain control through small, manic gestures—cutting up my food into tiny pieces, breaking bread into a line of morsels.
Does Zachary know? Can he tell?
Does he think it’s pathetic that I can’t even fulfil one of the most basic human functions?
Would he treat me the same if he knew?
After all, who would worship a broken goddess?
“Who do you think will win the prize at the end of the programme?” Zachary asks, his voice piercing through my thoughts. “The Apostles programme?”
His question is arch, but it makes my heart sink in my chest. I drop my gaze, not daring to look at him.
Because I don’t have the courage to tell him I’ve not yet decided whether to accept Mr Ambrose’s invitation. Because I don’t have the strength to tell him the path of my life has been redirected, rerouted, into a direction I never chose.
Because I don’t have a way of explaining to Zachary—because I can’t yet quite accept—that he and I won’t always remain Marvell’s perfect parallels.
Soon, I’ll go spinning off at a sharp angle, drawing forever away from him, until his presence in my life becomes little more than a memory, a distant dream.
“I will,” I answer him. “Obviously.”
