Chapter 15 #2
I understood why he was so angry. The outburst wasn’t really aimed at Zoe, it was more the fact that months of research had been destroyed with the flick of a lighter.
This was his way of coping. Words instead of plates, Zoe’s face instead of walls.
Still, I wished he wouldn’t. Zoe would never listen to us if we went about it like that.
If she felt like we were attacking someone she cared about, she’d shut down.
Her loyalty was unshakeable – nobody knew that better than me.
‘Davie,’ I began, but he cut me short.
‘What, Mabel? If she’d kept her mouth shut, we wouldn’t be back to square one right now!’
‘You know it wasn’t on purpose. Zoe’s just a bit—’
‘A bit what? Stupid?’
‘Zoe…’ My voice trailed off. Not because I’d been about to say it – I’d never call her or anybody else stupid – but I couldn’t think of a word she would prefer to hear.
The fact was, Zoe’s optimism and her unalterable faith in people did make her a little bit na?ve.
It wasn’t wrong, wanting to believe in goodness, but it was dangerous to be gullible.
I knew, however, that she wouldn’t take that word as a sign of concern and love, but as derogatory.
Zoe smiled bitterly. ‘Fine. I know you both think you’re more intelligent than me. And you probably are, but that doesn’t make it okay to look down your noses at me! I’m not going to let myself be patronised or manipulated, and I certainly won’t be insulted. Even by you.’
‘Zoe, please, you know we don’t—’ I took a step towards her, but she raised her hand and flinched back.
‘Just leave me alone. And Ashton. Okay?’ She turned on her heel and threw the door open, slamming it so hard behind her that a swirl of ash went eddying out of the window.
Davie watched the dust settle with a sigh. ‘What a fucking shitshow.’
I couldn’t disagree. Dumping my bag wearily onto a desk, I walked over to him. ‘Come on, let’s clean up this mess.’
* * *
We spent the rest of the day at a café, mostly in silence, because words seemed futile. I tried to hide it from Davie, but I was feeling as discouraged as he was.
Back in my room, I sat down at my desk and tried to prepare for my supervision the next day. It was nearly two when my phone lit up beside me.
It was absurd: I had only to read the name and my heart began to race.
Heathcliff
Are you okay?
I read the question several times, trying to work out how it made me feel.
Warm, because he was thinking about me in the middle of the night?
Relieved, because despite what his friends had done today – and he must know about it – he wasn’t distancing himself?
Or angry, because ‘his friends’ included him, and I couldn’t be sure he didn’t have something to do with it?
I looked again at the name I’d saved him under.
Heathcliff, instead of Blake. What I wanted to see, instead of what he kept showing me: he was one of them.
Pica
Did you know they were planning to burn Davie’s research?
I drew my feet up onto the chair and hugged my knees, waiting for him to reply. He was online, but he wasn’t typing. Maybe three minutes, then two words came back.
Heathcliff
Mabel, please.
Rage flared, smothering all gentler emotions. I hammered fiercely at the keypad.
Pica
***
This time he began typing immediately.
Heathcliff
You know I’m not going to answer that.
Of course I knew. It didn’t mean he was involved, or that he’d known about it in advance.
But it did mean he wouldn’t say anything to incriminate his friends.
He would always keep his mouth shut to protect them.
After all, he’d been doing exactly that for weeks: being evasive, saying only as much as he wanted to.
And it wasn’t enough. I wouldn’t let it be enough.
I couldn’t give up now, just because gathering information was becoming less important to me than what I felt when we were together.
The curiosity, the fascination, that warm sense of being seen.
Of being understood. Ultimately, none of it meant anything, because it didn’t matter who Blake could be, or who he might have been without his friends.
It only mattered what he was now. Someone who was allowing all this to happen around him.
Someone who wasn’t helping me. Someone I couldn’t allow myself to like, if I wanted to still like myself.
My lip quivered, but I didn’t hesitate.
Pica
Then don’t bother to text me back. You were right. It’s better if we just drop the whole thing.
Immediately, Blake began to type. He paused, began again, paused again. For nearly five minutes I stared at the screen – eyes throbbing, heart pounding. It skipped two beats when the answer came.
Heathcliff
Just leave it alone, Pica.
I smiled bitterly, and the movement tipped the first tear down my cheek.
Pica
Not your problem, Blake.
I knew using that name would have more impact than blocking him.
He knew it too. And he stopped responding.
I should have been relieved, but instead I ended up sobbing at my desk at two in the morning, surrounded by a jumble of papers scrawled with notes for essays I should have finished ages ago, photos of me and my best friend, who wasn’t talking to me, the golden glow of my desk lamp, and the grey curtains, shadow weaving into nightmare in their folds.
And running through my mind was a single line, the last thing I’d read before I shoved the book to the far corner of my shelf.
It is a long fight; I wish it were over!
I wished it too, I truly did. The only trouble was …
I sensed the fight had only just begun. Yet I wasn’t crying because I was afraid of what lay ahead.
I was crying because it struck me that some things ended before they’d even had a chance to start.
And that it was funny how an end without a beginning could hurt this much.