Theodora
almost half of what’s on my plate, and I finish the cup of wine, which makes me feel warm and drowsy.
When we’re finished, Zachary clears everything away, and we walk together to the empty dining hall, where he returns the plates, cutlery and bottle of wine to the kitchens. Then Zachary offers me his arm to walk me back to the sixth form girls’ building.
The sun has long set, and the campus is deserted. A cold wind chases the remnants of summer away, the fragrance of honeysuckle carried into the night air. The lamp light dots the azure darkness of early evening with spills of gold. The night is peaceful and still, a cocoon wrapping itself around Zachary and me.
“Did something happen during the summer holiday?” Zachary finally asks.
The question has been balanced on his tongue all evening. I watched him try to swallow it back, worry it with the tip of his tongue like poking a sore spot. I watched him debate whether to let it loose or swallow it back.
But Zachary has never been one to shy away from questions—no matter how difficult.
The philosopher in him would never allow him to.
I shake my head slowly. “No.”
It’s not quite a lie. Nothing happened over the holidays, not really. A conversation with my father doesn’t count as something. Finding out that I won’t be going to university and will be moving to Russia to live with him and be thrown like a rack of meat onto a stall at the marriage market—well, that counts, maybe, but how could I possibly tell Zachary?
Will I ever be able to tell him?
He’s worried about me, and if our positions were reversed, I’d worry about him too.
I hesitate and add, “The atmosphere in my family home is… a little tense.”
He squeezes his arm around mine in silent acknowledgement. “I can relate to that, trust me.”
“Tense summer at Castle Blackwood?” I ask.
“Tense summer at the Blackwood Manor,” he corrects me with a half-grin.
The relationship between Zachary and me has never permitted such sharing of information before. In the past, the boundaries between us were always clear. We could discuss any topic so long as it wasn’t personal. We avoided anything that might tip our rivalry into the territory of friendship.
But all we managed to do, it seems, is bypass friendship and land straight into something else—something far murkier and complex.
“Tense in general or tense for you?” I ask.
“Both,” he answers.
The wind follows his statement with a sudden gust that makes the leaves rustle like a sigh.
“I can’t imagine how Lord and Lady Blackwood would ever be displeased with you,” I say.
“If I’m honest, neither did I,” he replies. “I would consider myself the perfect son, really.”
I suppress a laugh, envious of his self-assurance.
“You would, would you?” I murmur. “The perfect son: clever, handsome, modest…”
“You think I’m handsome?”
“I said clever and modest.”
“You said handsome,” he says. He pulls his phone out of his pocket with his free hand and mutters, “I’m adding it to my collection of compliments.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever complimented you in my life.”
He opens a note and points his phone screen at me. “Here. Written, dated evidence.”
I peer at his screen. “I don’t remember ever complimenting your handwriting.”
“That’s worrying,” Zachary mutters as he types into his phone. “Maybe you’ve filled your memory with so many Keats stanzas that you’ve not left room for any core memories.”
“I don’t think telling you that you have nice handwriting counts as a core memory.”
He shakes his head. “Well, you calling me handsome counts as one of my core memories—and now you can never deny it.” He shows me his screen. “There—three compliments. Three compliments in almost seven years. That’s how stingy you are with them.”
“All of this, just so you don’t have to tell me what you did to annoy your parents.”
He laughs. “You didn’t ask.”
“I’m asking.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
I roll my eyes even though he’s not looking at me. “Of course not.”
“They want me to pursue politics,” he says after a short silence. “And I have no intention of doing so. Since they have no way of forcing me, a stalemate ensued, resulting in tension at the dinner table. There you go.”
I didn’t expect him to be so forthright, to deliver so much information. I don’t know why since Zachary never shies away from asking or answering questions. Zachary, for all his wit and arrogance and sarcasm, lives grounded in truth.
And part of me knows he would never deny me anything I asked.
“How do you know?” I ask. My voice almost breaks. “How do you know they have no way of forcing you?”
He shrugs. “What are they going to do? Lock me up and fill out my university applications for me? Force me to sit my exams at gunpoint? Chain me to a bench in the House of Lords chamber?”
His answer is like him, full of airy arrogance and sarcasm. But it sends ripples through me.
I find myself asking myself the same question: how could my father force me to return to Russia? Take me to the airport at gunpoint? Lock me up in his house and chain me to whatever husband he chooses for me?
My blood runs cold. My father is infamous for being a man who’s willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. I wouldn’t put anything past him.
Zachary turns to fix me with a curious look. Maybe he felt the ice in my veins—sensed it somehow. He frowns. “So what happened with your family? Why was the atmosphere tense?”
I swallow, trying to keep my voice from giving away too much.
“Same as you,” I say finally. “General disagreement about the future.”
“Oh.” He’s silent for a moment, and I realise we’ve reached the sixth form girls’ building. We stand at the foot of the stairs and watch each other. He lifts an eyebrow. “And?”
“And nothing.” I smile. “The future is just the future. Is there really a point in worrying about something that cannot be changed and hasn’t yet occurred?”
He frowns. “I’m not sure I agree with that.”
“This isn’t debate club, Zachary,” I say. “It’s just what I think. You don’t get to argue with me.”
He takes my hand in his and stares down at me with theatrical melancholy. “Too bad. I dearly love to argue with you.”
“You dearly love the sound of your own voice,” I correct him.
“I dearly love the sound of yours, too.”
He kisses my knuckles, and warmth melts through me like molten sugar, sweet and comforting. I let out a small laugh and take my hand back. “You’re shameless. You need to go.”
But I reach up and kiss his cheek. His skin is smooth against my lips, the smell of him fills my senses, and I have to resist the urge to draw closer, to wrap myself in his presence, his arms, his warmth.
“Thank you for the food, Zach.”
“Anytime.” The amusement fades from his face, replaced with that solemn intensity of his. “I mean it. Anytime.”
“I know. Goodnight.”
“Night, Theo.”
We part ways, but his warmth and perfume cling to my skin for the rest of the evening, chasing away the creeping numbness.
sit down at my desk and methodically list out my reasons for accepting and declining Mr Ambrose’s invitation to the Apostles programme.
Reasons I should decline:
The programme will be demanding, and I’m already struggling to maintain academic excellence in my subjects as well as balance my frankly precarious mental health and social responsibilities.
I also have my head girl duties to worry about.
If I join the programme and win—which I would do everything in my power to do—I would be taking the prize from someone who could actually use it, like Zachary.
Because if I win—which I would, I’d have no choice—I would be unable to collect the prize, no matter how badly I want it. I would have to admit to Mr Ambrose that I’m not going to university.
Reasons I should accept the invitation:
Win and have concrete evidence of my intellectual superiority over Zachary.
Winning against Zachary is something I’ve always wanted, a prize I’ve long coveted.
But is it enough?
I wish it was—I desperately want it to be. I desperately want a future where I finally prove to Zachary that I’m academically superior to him, sweep the prize from under him and then lord it over him when we both end up in Oxford.
This is the future I long for—but it’s not my future.
Not anymore.
Even though the answer to my dilemma is clear, it takes me the rest of the week to accept it. I review the list every night, hoping I’ll somehow figure out a solution, a way to get what I want.
I think about Zachary’s words about his parents being unable to force him to follow the fate they’ve chosen for him. I think of my father, the impassive stone of his face, the crushing flood of fear it sends through me even though he’s not here.
It’s a fear I can’t escape—a fear I don’t think I’ll ever escape. It lives inside me like a disease, keeping me forever its host and hostage.
The following week, I deliver a handwritten letter to Mr Ambrose’s secretary, politely declining his invitation. Instead of going to the meeting in his office, I go for a long walk around the outer rims of the Spearcrest campus.
I want to cry, but, of course, I can’t. I’ve not cried since I was a little girl.
No matter how often I’ve wanted to.
Luckily for me, it’s raining. I let the raindrops roll down my cheeks, weeping the tears I don’t get to weep.
