Chapter 27
Henry
Maeve has been dead for four weeks, and I still can’t take it in. Time stopped the moment I walked into the head’s office and saw Theo. And since then, it’s never really got going again.
I’ve missed three weeks of school. And I don’t give a damn. I can’t even think about it: There’s too much other stuff filling my head.
There’s an impenetrable veil over the days in Nairobi before Maeve’s funeral.
It feels like I wasn’t even really there.
It’s scary how little of it I can remember.
The return flight, our time with Gran and Gramp in Cheshire, it’s all fuzzy and out of focus.
I felt like I’d lost all contact with the real world, and if it hadn’t been for Emma, who texted or called every day, I’m certain that that would have been the case.
She and the others have made it as easy as possible for me to come back to school. They’re there around the clock. They listen to me, they sit in silence with me or take my mind off things, whichever I need at the time.
When I walk into the dining room between Emma and Tori on Monday morning, I feel all eyes on me. Of course, everyone knows what’s happened.
As I follow Emma to our table, voices hush, conversations trail off. It’s unbearable. Emma turns to me as I stop halfway. I don’t have to explain. I just barely perceptibly shake my head, mumble, “Sorry,” turn and leave the room.
Emma comes to stand beside me in the small inner courtyard. The sky is almost ridiculously blue. It makes me angry. I feel an overwhelming urge to kick one of the huge planters, but I pull myself together because that would be silly. Instead, I clench my fists, then walk on.
Emma stays with me. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask me where I’m going, just walks beside me.
“Sorry for being like this,” I say at some point, coming to a stop.
“Listen, Henry,” she replies at once. “You can be however you like. You can cry, be angry, irritated, I don’t care. I’m not going anywhere. Unless you genuinely want to be on your own . . . Do you want to be on your own?”
My throat is tight. “No.”
“OK, then.” She lowers her gaze, straightens her skirt, and looks up to the sky. She’s not even trying to get me to talk. She’s just there.
What did I do to deserve you?
I shut my eyes for a moment, seriously asking myself that question.
And I’d like to say something, but it’s not possible.
It’s too exhausting. The journey here was exhausting, last night was exhausting.
The conversation with Mrs. Sinclair and Mr. Ward, who told me not to worry about schoolwork or grades, that they’d be glad to see me back in lessons, but that if I give any teacher a signal, I can just leave the class at any time without explanation.
That I don’t have to do the next lot of tests if I don’t feel up to it.
That I can speak to Ms. Vail, the school psychologist, any time I want to.
I guess I ought to have cried because everyone is so concerned for me, but the truth is that I didn’t feel a thing.
I didn’t feel touched or grateful. I sat facing Mrs. Sinclair’s desk and nodded silently.
None of it is any use. Maeve won’t come back if I walk out of lessons or dodge the tests.
She’s never coming back because her dead body is in a wooden box five feet underground, and I just can’t take it in.
My only goal is to make it through the day.
Every day, that’s my goal. To hang in there when the darkness won’t let me out of its clutches.
Even making it through the day is too much sometimes.
At those times, it’s just about getting through the next hour, the next minute, even just the next breath.
I know why I can’t talk. Because I’d go mad and find myself pleading with heaven just to let me through to Maeve. I suppose it’s despair, grief, this overwhelming dark emotion. The kind of pain that nobody prepares you for.
They say it’ll get more bearable eventually. But I’m not convinced of that right now.
Emma
Henry’s been back at school for almost two weeks.
He’s struggling, and every day, I’m waiting to see if things are going to be any better.
But they aren’t. I keep glancing at him during our English test. He looks so desperately tired, can hardly keep his eyes open.
I’m not sure if he’s showered. He’s sitting motionless over his paper, pen in hand, but I don’t see him write anything.
“Keep your eyes on your own work,” Mr. Ward warns.
I look hastily away again.
The test is challenging but fair. Now that I’ve caught up with the others, I can answer the questions surprisingly easily.
It ought to be no problem at all for Henry, but when I hand in my paper just before time, he’s sitting motionless in his place, both elbows on the desk and his head in his hands.
As I pass, I catch a glimpse of his paper.
It’s blank, and my stomach lurches. Mrs. Sinclair said he didn’t have to do the test, and I don’t get why he didn’t take her up on that.
I walk out, not even happy that I think I did OK, seeing that Henry’s apparently handing in a blank sheet of paper.
Maybe Mr. Ward will let him off. I could ask Ms. Barnett for advice.
Or Mrs. Sinclair. Henry can’t keep sitting there doing nothing when we get to the mocks, can he?
He got a D in Latin yesterday, and I’m pretty sure Ms. Barnett marked it generously so as not to fail him altogether.
Henry’s clever enough that he’ll get good predicted grades, but he won’t be able to keep on like this without putting his A levels at risk. And then it’ll all be for nothing. Then we won’t have a future together at St. Andrews, like we were planning just before the world came to a stop around us.
Maybe I ought to think less about the future.
Maybe instead I should be thinking about what I can do to help Henry, but I’m stumped.
I’ve never lost anyone, not like this, anyway.
It’s different from the way things were after my dad walked out.
I was eleven, I didn’t understand, but I thought he’d be back before too long.
After all, he’d promised. It was a different kind of loss.
And it’s not like I’ve found a way of making the pain any easier since then.
I can only try to be there for Henry and not pressure him.
Not resort to tactless clichés. She had a great life.
I’m sure she’s happy where she is now. She wouldn’t want you to let yourself wallow like this.
That’s bollocks. Nobody knows what Maeve would want.
She’s dead. And Henry has to grieve. It’s just so painful and exhausting to be at his side and unable to do a bloody thing.
It drives me crazy to remember the way he cried on his first night back at school.
And that he hasn’t since then. Not once.
Mostly he’s just apathetic and blank. He laughs with the others sometimes, and when he sits with Gideon and Sinclair in the dining room, there seem to be plenty of times when he forgets what’s happened for a second.
Maybe it’s self-protection. I don’t know.
I can only say that he’s different when we’re together.
He’s pricklier, thinner-skinned. Maybe that’s better than indifference, because it means he still has feelings, despite everything.
But I’m worried. I might not have known Henry long, but I know him well enough to be sure that it’s bad for him to bottle up his emotions and not let them out.
That eventually he’ll burst. I can only hope that he’s not alone when it happens.
I’m standing in front of the mirror in my tiny bathroom, in leggings and hoodie, brushing my teeth, when there’s a knock at the door way after wing time. It’s not Henry’s knock. It sounds more like Tori. Toothbrush in mouth, I open the door. It is indeed Tori.
“You have to get dressed,” she says. “Sinclair texted, they’re drinking and Henry . . . He’s overdone it a bit.”
“He’s what?” I blurt. Toothpaste foam runs down my chin. I wipe it away with my hand and head back to the bathroom. Once I’ve rinsed my mouth, I go back to Tori.
“We should go and check on them. Henry doesn’t usually drink much. I don’t like this at all.” Tori is unusually anxious: Her eyes keep darting from me to the door and back again. When I don’t answer, she throws me my jacket. “Put this on.”
I catch it. “But isn’t this—” I gesture toward my hoodie.
“They’re on the roof, Emma.”
Someone could have told me sooner that there’s this secret door near the boys’ wing that leads to a narrow spiral staircase that goes up to a tiny platform between the spires on the school roof.
It’s pretty well hidden from view up there.
I don’t feel entirely comfortable as I reach the top with Tori.
The night is fresh: There’s an icy wind blowing around the turrets and rooftops.
Four people are crouched on the platform, Sinclair, Henry, Omar, and Gideon, circled by glass bottles.
Sinclair jumps up when he sees us. Although it’s dark, I can see his despair as he comes toward us.
“He just won’t stop,” he whispers.
Tori seems dangerously calm. “Then take the fucking bottle off him.”
“You don’t understand, he . . .”
I leave them there and walk over to Henry. He lifts his head. I can see at a glance that he’s wrecked. He’s slumped with his back to a low parapet; his eyelids are half shut. I put the water bottle I brought from my room in front of him and sit down.
“What the hell?” I ask.
He just shrugs. He goes to lift his own bottle to his lips, but I grab his wrist.
“I think you’ve had enough, Henry.” I hold the water out to him. “Drink.”
“Could you just—”
“Drink this,” I say, a notch more sharply.
As he turns his head to me, I recognize the pain in his green eyes. I immediately understand why he’s doing this. There’s no need for it, it’s toxic, this “I’m drinking my emotions away and hoping it’s the answer” stuff. He knows better. I’m worried for him, but it’s making me angry too.
“Emma, you can have a drink too, or you can piss off.” His tongue is heavy, and he’s slurring. I know he’s drunk, and I shouldn’t take his words to heart, but that doesn’t make them hurt any the less. He’s never tried to get rid of me before.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I hiss. “Because you’re not going anywhere either.”
“You don’t know what I’m gonna do,” he mumbles.
“I’m very sorry, but that’s just not true.”
“Yeah, it is. God, you’re clueless! You don’t know what it’s like.
But hey, it’s been a coupla weeks now, time for him to start pulling himself together, huh?
” Henry’s raising his voice more with each word.
Omar and Gideon are acting like they’re not listening.
Tori and Sinclair stand rooted to the spot.
When Henry gets up and has to clutch onto the wall, my stomach lurches. I pull myself up too, grabbing him by the sleeve as he sways. My eyes take in the edge, which is only a few steps away.
Henry tries to pull himself free.
“Henry.” You can hear the effort I’m making to keep my voice calm. “Stop this shit.”
“I just wanna be left in peace, all right?” he snaps at me.
I want to say something. Henry tries to sidestep. His foot connects with one of the bottles, glass clinking on glass. Sinclair has the presence of mind to take a step toward us and grab Henry by his jacket collar.
“Time for bed, Bennington.”
All I can do is watch the bottle as it rolls in slow motion over the edge and disappears into the darkness. A moment later, we hear the crash. From up here, it was fairly quiet, but I still hold my breath.
The others stand thunderstruck beside me. I’ve only just dared to breathe again when a light goes on down in the courtyard.
“Fuck,” mumbles Tori, ducking down. “You lads are so stupid, you know that?”
I’m in total agreement with her, but I bite my tongue as I help her and Omar to gather up the bottles at lightning speed.
Sinclair’s already pushing Henry toward the stairs.
I’m sure Henry knows the way better than I do, but it would be easy enough to miss one of the narrow steps in the darkness, even stone-cold sober.
I only uncross my fingers once he’s made it to the bottom.
Gideon shuts the door behind us, and I stand there.
Our rooms are in opposite directions, and it would definitely be better for me and Tori to be in bed if Ms. Barnett’s going to be checking up on us at any minute.
And I’m pissed off with Henry. But all the same, I’d rather turn to the left and make sure he gets safely back to his room.
Sinclair glances over his shoulder like he’s read my mind. He opens his mouth, but before he gets a chance to say anything, the light goes on.
“Nobody move.”
I close my eyes.