Chapter 17
Cliff
Not until Mabel’s footsteps had died away behind me did I let myself breathe and face up to what had just happened. I wished I could think of it in such passive terms, but of course I knew better. None of it had just happened: I’d wanted it, done it, loved it.
‘I…’ My voice petered out as I heard the noises on the main staircase. Besides, there was no good way to finish that sentence. No logical explanation for how I’d let this happen.
Norah’s lips were tight, and a moment later, Ashton appeared in the hall. ‘What are you two doing up here?’
I shook my head, looking at Norah. For a while now we’d been closer than she was with Ashton, but I knew how hard it was to hide anything from him. Still, she shrugged without hesitation. ‘Nothing. I just told him we were leaving.’
‘Mmm.’ Ashton looked from one of us to the other. He was usually able to sense when there was something going on under the surface, but he couldn’t possibly know what it was we were keeping from him, could he? It was absurd. ‘Your moth’s here,’ he said at last, so abruptly that I almost jumped.
I pulled myself together. ‘Yes, I saw her too. She’s getting a little clingy these days. I sent her away.’
Ashton came closer to me. ‘Vic saw her at the party downstairs with that professor. Coincidence, is it?’
Over his shoulder I saw Norah gesture to her mouth, and reflexively I wiped the back of my hand over my lips. I didn’t have to look to know there was make-up on them. Strongest Temptation was what I’d just been feeling – Biggest Fear was what I felt now.
‘What else could it be?’ I said, after a pause a fraction too long.
Ashton came to a halt in front of me, studying me closely.
Ever since Zoe had told him about the little research project Mabel and her friend were doing, he’d been even more on edge about her.
I had to promise him again that I’d take care of it.
If he knew what had just happened, he wouldn’t have hesitated to take matters into his own hands.
My pulse was beating so hard I could feel the very core of my body quivering. Ashton’s eyes wandered to it, then he shook his head. ‘You know what?’ He drew back with a grim smile. ‘Not my problem, not today. I can’t deal with that shit on top of everything else.’
He ran a hand over his face, but the weary look remained.
I felt my guard come down a little, transforming into an emotion I rarely felt for Ashton.
Only in those moments when I saw cracks in his invulnerable facade.
Most of the time it was one particular person who made them appear.
Henry’s words were fists, his glances well-aimed kicks, and Ashton was his favourite punching bag.
‘You know he doesn’t mean it like that,’ I said softly.
Ashton snorted. ‘What? That he’s ashamed of me? That I’m a crushing disappointment? Yes he does. And he’s right. Because everybody around here does whatever they want, and because every lapse makes me look bad.’
‘You seemed quite happy to bend the rules yourself the other day,’ I reminded him, although Norah’s expression warned me I was on thin ice.
‘Yeah, well if I did, I wouldn’t let myself get caught,’ he hissed. ‘From now on, we make no more mistakes, got it?’
‘So we’ll leave Paulina alone?’
‘You heard me. We can’t afford to draw any more attention to ourselves right now. We’ll keep an eye on her, but as long as she doesn’t go blabbing…’ He shrugged.
I nodded slowly. It was exactly the answer I’d been hoping for, although I wondered why Henry had gone to the effort of coming all this way.
Well. The reason was probably standing right in front of me, tense and rigid, as if in pain.
He’d never admit it, but I could tell that Henry’s dressing down had got to him.
He was suffering. And no matter how angry I’d been with Ashton lately, I hated to see it.
‘He doesn’t mean it, Ash,’ I repeated, more gently.
Ashton briefly closed his eyes, then he forced a grin. ‘Doesn’t matter. I feel like getting hammered. Let’s go down the pub, or a club, maybe.’
I relaxed. It was selfish, but when Ashton was in this mood I preferred the thought of him in a crowd than near one person in particular. ‘Sure. You round up the others and we’ll meet you outside.’
As soon as his footsteps had receded down the stairs, I turned to Norah.
She hadn’t moved a muscle throughout the whole conversation, her gaze burning into mine.
I didn’t bother to start explaining. I knew her well enough to be sure she’d always share her loudest thoughts with me.
And this one was shrieking so deafeningly that I could hear it even before she opened her mouth.
‘Just clarify for me: which of you is the moth and which is the light?’
I rolled my eyes and went over to the window, knowing my face couldn’t keep up the lie much longer. ‘I just got carried away for a minute. It happens, you know that.’
‘Not to you. You always keep that stuff separate. And something tells me you still are.’ She had followed me, her nearness a shimmer behind me. ‘So, if I’m right, then what I just saw is the only way you touch her. Correct?’
My eyes fell on the back of my hand. On the streaks of red lipstick, reminding me of red-smeared blood. I wiped them roughly, until the skin was on fire. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’ I wanted so badly to believe it.
‘Of course not.’ Her voice softened. ‘We all have needs, we’re people too. It’s just … how long has it been since you allowed that kind of contact?’
A long time. A very long time. So long that I could barely remember their names, let alone their faces.
I could count on one hand the women I’d slept with in the last few years.
On one finger, those I’d slept with more than once.
It wasn’t that I’d never wanted to, but the self-loathing afterwards had always outweighed the satisfaction.
Lately, there had been another reason, too, why being with a woman felt impossible.
I’d thought it wasn’t worth it. That I could rise above it, the same way I’d risen above my strongest urges.
Only, with Mabel, it hadn’t felt like an urge.
That was the thing: getting closer to her didn’t feel like a choice, it felt inevitable.
What had just happened wasn’t a carefully considered decision, it was a surrendering to emotions that had been building up for weeks.
‘What do you want, Norah?’ We didn’t have much time before Ashton lost patience, and I didn’t want to have this conversation anyway.
I didn’t want to hear what Norah thought, because I already knew the gist of it.
I wasn’t just thinking it, I felt it too: it’s always the happiest moments that leave the bitterest aftertaste of guilt and regret.
I felt constantly guilty, but especially now.
So why couldn’t I bring myself to regret the kiss?
Why couldn’t I regret anything when it came to Mabel?
How could I know it was wrong, yet still not want to stop?
And how could I not even hate myself for it?
Maybe because, for the first time in an age, I felt like she saw someone in me who deserved more than that?
Who was more than that? Who might be exactly the person I so badly wanted to be?
‘I’m just trying to understand you.’ Norah laid a hand on my back until I turned to face her. There was worry in her eyes, and maybe even grief. ‘What are you doing?’
I have no idea, I thought, but couldn’t bring myself to say it.
I couldn’t even look at Norah. Her expression of confusion, anxiety and horror was too much.
Too much of what I’d been trying to block out for weeks.
Because she was right, of course. Mabel wasn’t the moth.
Mabel was the light, the light I couldn’t resist, and which would burn me, in the end.
And yet she was the one who would ultimately lose her wings, who would lose everything, if I allowed that kind of closeness.
‘Oh, Cliff,’ Norah sighed, in the sad way she always said that name.
She only did it when the others weren’t around.
My favourite defiance of the rules, and one that always made me close my eyes, just briefly, and remember.
What I’d once been, what I’d so dearly like to be, what I could never be again.
‘If it’s her face you like, maybe we can find a solution. You know they make exceptions sometimes.’
I raised my eyes, confused. ‘Her face?’
‘She’s pretty,’ she said matter-of-factly. We both knew how ephemeral that was. ‘She has thoughtful eyes. I know you like that.’
I gave a hoarse laugh. ‘I don’t care about her face, Norah.’ I turned away abruptly, steadying myself on the windowsill. Outside, the college was sinking into a deep blue, my reflection glimmering as palely as the thin blanket of snow on the asphalt.
Norah was silent for a moment, then she took a deep breath. ‘Well, that’s inconvenient.’
‘I know.’ Inconvenient, impossible, unforgiveable.
I turned back to her. Arms crossed, I leant against the window frame and glanced down the corridor.
Everything felt alien. This place, these people.
They were my only family, my whole life.
Yet I couldn’t deny it any longer: I was rediscovering a long-lost part of myself, and I sensed that it would mean losing something else, something essential, and final.
‘Don’t tell Ashton. Please.’
‘Don’t worry.’ She smiled feebly. ‘But you know him. He’ll sniff it out. And even if he doesn’t … there’s no way this ends well. You know that, right?’
‘Of course I do. No chance of that for any of us, is there?’