Zachary
saint of academics, believed that penance relied on three conditions:
Contrition—sorrow for sin.
Amendment—confessing sins without omission.
And satisfaction by means of good work.
All of those things sound reasonable—maybe even noble.
Sorrow for sins is easy because my sin resulted in Theodora’s hurt and anger and her avoiding me like a plague of blisters. And I’m not afraid to do good work. Work, good or otherwise, has never intimidated me.
But confessing my sins without omission is a Herculean mission—maybe even a Sisyphean task.
Because it would mean telling Theodora while I’m unhappy with her, why I lashed out at her, and why I couldn’t read a scene of Othello without projecting us onto the characters. It would mean telling Theodora that I wanted to be the first person to kiss her even though she never promised me her first kiss, even though not a single thing in this world entitles me to her kisses except the fact I want them. I would need to admit that she hurt me, hurt both my pride and my feelings.
Being honest doesn’t bother me—I could confess to just about any sin in front of just about any person. But of course, Theodora isn’t just about any person.
Still, not doing the right thing because it’s difficult or because it’s embarrassing isn’t a good enough reason.
cold enough for the wind to have chased away the clouds and crystallised the beads of moisture on leaves and window panes. Normally, whenever I need to find Theodora, all I need to do is to hunt her down in her usual spot in the library, but she won’t be there today.
Theodora’s use of social media is tactful: aesthetically pleasing and frequent without ever revealing much about her at all. Her friends, on the other hand, use their social media accounts very much in the same way as the Victorians used journals and letters—a medium in which to pour all one’s thoughts and emotions.
And Seraphina Rosenthal—the Rose of Spearcrest—posted a GRWM less than half an hour ago.
In it, she filmed herself doing her make-up and picking an outfit, and although my phone was on mute and I couldn’t hear what she was saying, her caption read, Get ready with me: tate britain girl trip edition.
I consider asking Evan if he’d like to come to London with me since he’s always good fun on a trip, but he’s been taking English lit more seriously since Sophie Sutton started tutoring him, and I don’t want to be the one to distract him. So I order a private cab and make my way to London with only David Hume’s collected essays for company.
I’m more than a little nervous—far more nervous than I normally am in any given circumstance—but luckily for me, David Hume’s stream-of-consciousness style of writing is dense enough to require all my attention, and I soon lose myself in his words.
By the time the cab pulls to a stop, I’m still on the same section I was on at the start of the journey, but I’ve highlighted one quote which stays with me.
“We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.”
This sentiment flies in the face of what I’ve always believed: that the whole point of reason is that it’s there to govern the baser aspect of our minds—our emotions. I’m not sure I agree with Hume’s assertion that reason has no other purpose but to “serve and obey” our passions rather than the other way around, but it gives me plenty to think about as I thank the cab driver and make my way into the gallery.
Once I’m standing inside, I pause. Above me is the white cage of the glass dome, which separates the icy-blue sky into squares like pale sapphires set in a lattice of bones.
I gaze into the sky and breathe deeply, steeling myself. I’m tempted to open my phone and find out Theodora’s location by checking the regular and numerous story updates Rose is doubtlessly posting, but I find that I don’t need to. I make my way through the gallery, chamber by chamber, and gaze at the paintings, looking for Theodora in each of them.
Not Theodora herself—but Theodora’s interest, her attention. What would capture her gaze?
Turner’s moody, shimmering depictions of nature, vivid suns seen through clouds like torn veils. The long-haired, unsmiling women of Rossetti’s paintings—a depiction of femininity not softened for male consumption. Draper’s fallen Icarus, with his brown skin and the tragic fan of his wings.
I spot Theodora before I spot any painting in the room she’s in.
My eyes fall on her as if she’s the artwork. She’s standing straight as an arrow, holding something against her chest. She’s in a short cream dress and an enormous pearl-grey cardigan.
Completely alone, she stands face to face with Millais’s Ophelia.
The moment I spot her, I’m acutely aware of the fact that I’m now watching her, making her the focus of all my attention. It somehow feels like an intrusion, and I know I have no choice but to make myself known.
I stand next to her, shoulder to shoulder, as close as I can get to her without making any contact between her body and mine.
“Hi, Theo.”
She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t start. I detect perhaps the merest hint of a stiffening of her posture, a tightening of her arms around whatever she’s holding to her chest—a textbook, a map of the gallery and her tablet in its café au lait-coloured case.
“Hi, Zach.” She’s silent for a moment, her eyes still fixed on Ophelia. Then she adds, “Why do they always have to die for the men?”
“Who? Shakespeare’s women? They don’t.”
“Not all of them—but those who do. Ophelia. Desdemona. Juliet. Why must they die? Why must the men wear their dead women as accessories to their own tragedies?”
“Maybe they’re not accessories. Maybe they’re the real tragedy—a reflection of the innocents who get sucked into the vortex of angry, flawed people and get hurt in the process.”
“Maybe.” Theodora lets out a sigh. “I guess after studying literature all these years, I feel a bit burnt out on female victims and female suicides and suffocated wives and hysteria and erotomania.”
I’m silent for a moment, taking in what she’s saying. Part of it, I take at face value. Women have it hard in literature—art imitating life and perhaps a little bit of vice versa at play. Making your way through the canon of classical literature as we have for the past few years has meant an almost constant parade of suffering or mistreated women, interrupted now and then by a Jane Eyre or a Lizzie Bennet, but even then, not without their share of pain.
But I don’t think Theodora is just talking about literature.
There’s a sadness inside Theodora, a sadness that was there the first time I saw her, sitting stiffly in her blue felt seat, a sadness that seems to cling around her like a heavy mantle, trailing behind her wherever she goes.
A sadness I wish I could tear off her—if only it was tangible to me.
I’m not sure what to say, and I’m not sure if there’s anything Theodora wants me to say. I hesitate and then ask, “How are you, Theodora?”
She finally looks at me, a wry smile on her face. There’s a brittleness to her, like porcelain so frail it’s almost translucent. She looks as if a mere caress might send a crack running through her. Her eyes are cold, not cold like a distant glacier, but cold like fragile frost.
“I’m tired,” she answers. “I’m so tired. And I have no idea what I’m going to write for Mr Ambrose’s beauty assignment.”
I frown. Theodora has excelled so far in the programme. She’s not missed a single assignment, and Mr Ambrose has been raining praise on every piece of work she’s submitted.
In literature class, she’s finally managed to pull a little ahead of me, her essays always getting higher marks than mine. As far as I’m concerned, she’s thriving—academically.
Hearing that she’s stumped doesn’t fill me with satisfaction, like I’m seeing my rival stumble in the race. It makes me feel devastated, like finding out the enemy you were looking forward to duelling has fallen ill.
“Maybe you’re overthinking it,” I say suddenly, remembering the reading I’ve been doing, all of it to find a way of avoiding writing an essay that will make Mr Ambrose realise how desperately I love Theodora. “Mr Ambrose specifically said he wants to hear about our interpretations of beauty—maybe that’s all you have to write about.”
“What if you’re not sure what is or isn’t beautiful? What if you are in an abusive relationship with beauty?” She’s no longer looking at me, her eyes having drifted back to Ophelia’s face. “What if I’m Ophelia and beauty is Hamlet, making me feel so awful I want to die?”
A pit opens at the bottom of my stomach—a dark pit of pure terror.
“Do you want to die?” I ask, keeping my voice as calm as I can when asking such a question and being so afraid of the answer.
Theodora sighs. “No. I don’t want to die—I want to live. I want it quite desperately. Maybe I’m not like Ophelia after all.” She finally turns away from the painting. “You’ve caught me at a bad time, Zach.” She smiles at me, a smile that feels like she’s just put a mask back on. “I’m sure you weren’t expecting such despondency after taking the time to find me here.”
“I came because I wanted to apologise to you,” I blurt out. “I know it’s an overdue sort of apology, which is why I didn’t want to wait any longer than I already have.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You don’t need to apologise.”
“I do. I shouldn’t have been so rude to you in lit class the other day. I shouldn’t have been so moody and immature. And I shouldn’t—I didn’t want to fight, that night at the party, but I felt so angry and aggrieved, I felt like you hurt me, and I wanted to hurt you back. But—”
I remember Aquinas’s rules for penance. Confessing sins without omission. How could I possibly tell Theodora I wanted her first kiss—that I want all her kisses?
Telling her would feel both humiliating and manipulative.
“I regret our fight, Theo. And I miss our friendship, even if you keep saying we’re not friends.”
She watches me for the longest moment. I watch her back, my gaze stuck against the forget-me-not blue of her eyes, unable to penetrate the emotions beyond it. We’re standing at arm’s length from one another, and the gallery around us might as well not exist.
Existence right now is Theodora’s blue gaze, her delicate skin, her long hair, the stormy ocean of restrained emotions I long to plunge into, the heat of every kiss and caress I want to bestow upon her.
I shiver, my skin burning with the want of hers.
“I forgive you,” she says finally, voice surprisingly soft. “And I’m sorry for saying we aren’t friends. We are. Well…” She lets out a little laugh. “We’re not—are we? But we’re something.”
Something like love and hatred and desire, something like the inky depth of an abyss and the soaring breath of a zephyr. Something painful and exhilarating, the golden palaces of heaven and the dark wastelands of hell. Something like soulmates and lovers and enemies.
Something imperfect and sublime.
“Yes, Theo.” I extend my hand between us. “Let’s be somethings again. Let’s not let anything get in the way of our somethingship.”
She takes my hand and smiles, finally. “Best somethings forever.”
