35. Soren
SOREN
Hadrian’s music has improved immensely over the years, but the fact that I can hear it through my fucking walls is torture.
The best friend who abandoned me is now like a personal ghost of Christmas past. I’ve done my best to avoid him the past few days, not wanting the inevitable confrontation or the shitty feelings his presence evokes.
He looks much like that boy I once knew, eyes calculating and distant, and I don’t know how I didn’t see through him back then.
Hadrian only showed joy while playing music.
I considered it a privilege to be close to a genius like him, but it didn’t feel that way when he left us behind.
Class ends, and I realize I haven’t heard a word.
I’m thinking about all the ways my life has gone wrong and the many issues I need to deal with.
I don’t care about Sable, but the stunt with the car wasn’t okay.
Arabella should know better , I seethe to myself, but I admit that in the past I haven’t stopped her from bullying the Offerings.
My gut turns over on itself as I try to find a word other than care for why it’s different when it’s Sable.
My jaw ticks, rage and something like grief coil inside my chest. Hadrian is here, living on our floor, and he wants to play with the Offering.
I don’t even want her, and that pisses me off.
It’s not only the fact that he’s ignored his duty to our families in the pursuit of his music.
I’m mad because of the entire situation, my whole life, living here, being a good puppet while he’s out in the world.
He paved a name for himself, while my name crushed me.
One thing I have to comfort myself with is that we already know the twists and turns of this duplicitous university, and he’s starting from scratch years later.
He has no chance of outmaneuvering us here.
I move away from the crowd, clinging to the wall of the corridor.
In addition to the jealousy that’s eating me alive, we did nothing to deserve his silence.
Even if he left, there was no reason not to answer my many calls and messages.
I tried for so long, and getting nothing but silence from Hadrian was embarrassing.
I finally gave up. Accepting that he was dead to me was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Is the solstice that close? The dead are already walking.
A wailing violin chord reaches me from somewhere down the hall.
The music stops in my tracks, and for a long moment, I assume I’m going insane.
I thought about him with such intensity that I summoned my own hallucinations.
I keep walking, and it only grows louder.
When I reach the top of the stairwell, I realize why the sound carried so far.
He stands three floors below, taking advantage of the chamber effect.
All of the attached floors must have heard the same music I did.
I keep myself tucked off to the side as I listen.
My gut burns, but part of me relishes the beauty of the music.
I’m not sure why I’m listening, or what I hope to get out of it, but I stay here, glad that no one walks past, but then he misses a note.
Hadrian never misses a note. I step to the edge of the railing to see what distracted him, and there stands the Offering.
Her face is red, and she’s breathing hard.
A collar circles her throat, but there’s no leash dangling.
She talks to Hadrian frantically, hands shaking as she begs him for something I can’t hear.
Much louder footsteps bang down the hall, and they echo with no music to drown them out.
My brother comes barreling in with his face even redder than Sable’s, enraged like a bull, and practically snarling.
This behavior is a perfect example of why it sucks so much to share his face.
“What the fuck, Sable? I’ll put the leash back on,” he shouts at her.
The click in his head when he sees that she’s talking to Hadrian is audible from all the way up here.
“Why are you talking to my Offering, Hadrian?”
“Don’t be dense, Orion,” Hadrian says, voice far lower. I realize I’m listening as hard as I can to catch everything he’s saying.
“Watch yourself,” Orion says as he grabs Sable’s arm and pulls her away. “You’re going to pay for that,” he tells her.
“I’m terrified,” she says sarcastically, but stares over her shoulder, begging Hadrian with her eyes. What did she ask him for before my brother arrived?
My body wants to follow her, a hook right in my stomach pulling me forward, but I force myself to follow Hadrian instead.
He cuts through the crowd with arrogance, heading to the north wing, our dorm.
Taking one of the many more direct paths I know, I move through the glass atrium that splits the library.
A storm rolls in, fat raindrops hitting the glass.
I step out into the hall, his door sits all the way at the end, and I lean against the stone, waiting for him to show.
Heavy footsteps finally come to a stop. I school my expression for a hard moment before I face my childhood best friend.
“Soren,” he finally says my name when we’re only feet apart.
“Playing in the middle of the castle? Seriously?” I chuckle sarcastically, but I’m not surprised.
“It’s the best acoustics in the place.” He shrugs.
“You should have asked. There’s better.” He should know I’m talking about far more than his damn music.
To Hadrian, the music comes first; it doesn’t matter what the situation is.
The weight of his presence alone drags me down, and suddenly, I’m exhausted.
He doesn’t perform for others. Instead, he’s only doing what’s best for himself, but a Bellthorn stairwell is nothing compared to the venues he’s played.
“Probably, but I wasn’t sure you would have answered.” The suggestion that I’m the one who wouldn’t speak to him makes my blood boil.
“Why are you here, Hadrian?”
He sighs and shakes his head, turning away from me and walking toward the door. He opens his eye for the retinal scan, and the door opens with a soft click.
“Why is the sky blue?”
“I’m not dealing with fucking riddles. Why are you here?” I demand, but what I really want to ask is, what did she say to you?
“I don’t know, Soren. You should ask my father.” He gives me one last look as if he’s had enough of our conversation, and it will be that easy to shut me out again. He steps inside, but I follow him. I don’t care why he thought he could ignore me for so many years, but he can’t anymore.
“Is that all, Hadrian? Eleven years of silence, and that’s why you’re here?
Daddy forced you?” I taunt, making him mad, which used to be a good way to get him to talk.
His room is shaped the same as mine, but our decorations are incredibly different.
Hadrian ignores my questions once again and makes a beeline for the piano, as if it’s the only thing in the world that matters to him, and I know that’s true.
“So you’re going to continue to ignore me even when I’m standing right here?” I don’t like the raw quality of my voice or the vulnerability I’m showing him. I’ll beat his fucking ass before I cry, and I’m not usually the violent type.
“Aren’t we all here because our parents forced us?” he asks me as he flips the piano’s fallboard, and his fingers dance over the keys without making any music.
“No. You know some of them love it.”
“Do you?” he asks.
I refuse to even examine that question long enough to give him an answer. He doesn’t deserve my introspection.
“Do you know her?” I ask, pointing at the black door that leads into her room, starting to move the conversation toward what I really want to know without being obvious. “I saw you with her today.”
“Not really,” he lies. It hurts that I still know him well enough to be sure of his tells. “But everyone knows of her,” he continues. “It’s dangerous for her here.” He’s still not looking at me, and I resent his attempt at advice.
Sable is the Offering; she’s a big girl and signed on the dotted line.
Who knows what it’s actually like for her on the outside with the paparazzi and all the shit she deals with?
Maybe it is really better for her here than it is out there.
That’s not my place to judge; it was hers.
Hadrian is the last person who should be talking about things he doesn’t understand.
“Just stay out of my way,” I grit, hating that he’s won this round. Rather than walk all the way around to my own door. I use his door to Sable’s room, and then go back into my own. It was simply for convenience , I tell myself as I breathe her scent deep.