Chapter 10 #4
I nod all the same, because that’s easier than explaining why there’s no point. “Did they meet here too?” I ask.
“Yeah.” I hear the smile in Henry’s voice. “This school is like some kind of dating site. I know loads of couples who met here.”
“Like you and Grace,” I say.
He doesn’t answer right away. “Like me and Grace.” He stops and points his phone torch down another branching tunnel. “We can go this way.”
“How come you know your way around down here so well?” I murmur.
“Years of practice. And a good memory.”
We reach a staircase and Henry lights up the broad steps ahead of us. Just before we get to the top, he switches off the torch. We’re inside a building, and there’s pale moonlight shining through the high windows.
“We have to keep quiet again now,” he whispers.
It feels totally surreal, walking beside Henry along the deserted corridors. I haven’t the least idea which part of the school we’re in, but this area seems vaguely familiar.
Henry puts his finger to his lips as we approach a large set of double doors in dark wood. He puts a hand on the latch and cautiously pushes it open. There’s a long, drawn-out screech, and Henry bites his bottom lip, waving to me to go ahead. I flit through the crack in the door and stop.
“Oops, sorry . . .” murmurs Henry as he stumbles into me. His hand is on my side; he pulls it back, and I hurriedly step forward. He shuts the door, switches his phone torch on again, and then I recognize where he’s brought me.
“Ta-da! The school library,” he says. The tall shelves, laden with countless books, swallow his voice. “It doesn’t get more clichéd than this.”
“That’s a shame,” I murmur. The sound of his quiet laugh gives me goose bumps.
“I’ll have to think of something to make your Scottish boarding-school experience even more authentic,” he promises.
“It’s already pretty good,” I say, holding my breath as Henry puts his hand on my shoulder. We shouldn’t keep touching like this, and I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s driving me crazy. “Except the phone light is really killing the atmosphere.”
“That’s why I’m looking for the candles.”
I have to laugh. “Seriously?”
“Yes, of course. Ah, here they are.” I stay still as Henry steps to one side and puts his phone down on a small shelf.
Seconds later, there’s a hiss and a little flame strikes up.
He lights three candles and it’s brighter now.
The warm light throws flickering shadows onto all the books against the walls.
Most of them look so old and valuable that I don’t dare get them down.
Silently, I walk past one bookcase, running my fingers over the spines. Henry follows me.
“Does it ever get normal, living here?” I ask after a while, not looking around.
“I don’t think so, no,” he says.
At that moment, I spot a little plaque on one of the shelves: Yearbooks 2015–2020. They’re chunky and they all look exactly the same, apart from the different years on the spines. My heart beats faster.
I glance at Henry; he’s just pulled down a book and started flicking through it.
I hastily look up at the labels on the shelves.
Yearbooks 1995–2000
Yearbooks 1990–1995
1994. That must have been their year.
I’m about to reach out for the book when Henry joins me. “What are you looking at?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say hurriedly, turning away and pretending to study the display case full of trophies and photos that are standing right next to the bookcase.
I don’t know why I don’t just tell him the truth. Maybe because I have to be alone when I look in that book for clues to the man who couldn’t care less about my existence. It’s humiliating enough as it is.
“Rugby’s the shit here, isn’t it?” I ask instead. It’s the first thing that comes to mind. Hardly surprising, considering all the cups and photos I can see behind the glass.
“Pretty much,” says Henry. There’s a funny tone to his voice now. He holds the candlestick a little closer to the case, until the flickering light falls on the group pictures behind the trophies.
“That’s Theo,” Henry says at the very second that I think the guy in the middle looks so much like him. “My brother. He was the rugby captain.”
“Wow,” I breathe, stepping a little closer to the trophy cabinet. “Is that why you want to get onto the team?”
He laughs. It’s probably meant to sound natural. But if so, it’s not working. “God, no. Apparently it might help my uni application.”
“Is that so important?” I ask.
“Maybe,” he says curtly. “I’m pretty good at all my subjects, so it might not make much difference, but they say it looks good to play for the school.”
“Where do you want to go to uni?” I ask.
I’d expected Henry to say Oxford or Cambridge, but he doesn’t. “St. Andrews,” he replies.
I’m surprised.
“It’s a bit north of—”
“Edinburgh, I know,” I say. “My mum went there.”
Henry’s face brightens. “Really?”
“Yeah. Law.”
“Do you want to go there too?”
“I don’t know. I think I’ll study somewhere in Germany. Maybe at the Sport University Cologne in Cologne, if I pass the entrance exam.”
He pauses. “I mean, now that you’re here . . . you could finish your A levels at Dunbridge and study in Scotland, or in England . . .”
“I know that,” I reply, and it sounds a bit more snappy than really necessary. But I’ve had this conversation so often, with people who apparently know the right thing for me better than I do.
Henry doesn’t speak again. He keeps looking into that display case, and I start to feel guilty.
“Do you really want to be a teacher?” I make an effort to sound friendlier.
“Yes.” His eyes wander over the shelves, to the end of the room. “I really do. I dream of coming back and teaching here one day.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who dreams of going back to their school,” I blurt. “Most of them want to get as far away as possible once they’ve done their exams.”
Henry is silent briefly. “I know. But Dunbridge Academy was the first place that really taught me what home means. I didn’t even know I was missing anything until I started here.
I’d been to so many schools and lived in so many places.
But it’s different here. I belong here and I’d like to pass on the stuff I’ve learned here to others.
” It’s quiet for a moment, then Henry laughs. “Wow, I sound like such a geek.”
I can’t help grinning. “But a very nice geek.”
“Hey . . .”
“Oh, sorry, should I have said something like ‘That’s crap, Henry! You’re a total rebel?’”
“Yeah, you really should.”
“Sorry, I’m just such a terrible liar.”
Now we’re both silent, and my eyes stray, as if on autopilot, back to that trophy cabinet. “So the rugby team,” I murmur. It’s a big deal to Henry. “What’s the time?”
“What?”
“What’s the time, Henry?” I repeat.
He looks at me like I’m out of my mind. Then he glances down at his phone. “Almost three.”
“OK.” I reach for the candlestick. Somehow I hadn’t realized that our fingers would touch.
And there’s something about those touches, something I’ll never understand.
Little bolts of lightning that turn into liquid heat.
Henry’s eyes darken as they wander down from mine to my mouth.
The candlelight flickers in his eyes, and I go weak at the knees.
He’s holding his breath; I can see it. “We have to get to bed.”
“Why?” Henry asks, and my stomach leaps as I hear the quiet disappointment in his voice.
“Because tomorrow morning we’re going for a run.”