Chapter 21
Mabel
I ran a sharp eye over the kitchen counter as I shrugged on my coat.
Blake said when I was in his flat I acted like a guest at a holiday rental, because I made a point of leaving it tidy when I was here alone.
But he must have known it was my way of saying thank you for letting me come here when I needed a change from the library.
My fingers fumbled for the magpie ornament in my pocket.
With a shake of the head, Blake had dismissed my attempt to return the Christmas decorations I took down from the tree last week.
Keep them. They mean nothing to my family, and I’d rather know you had them.
It had sounded like goodbye, like so much of what he said to me.
Like the way he looked at me sometimes, too.
As if he was trying to commit something to memory.
Not what he could see, but the whole moment we shared.
The quiet moments when I came to his flat and we ate together and watched old films, talked or simply looked at one another, really seeing.
When he dropped in at the library and kissed me behind the stacks of dusty books.
The smell of paper, the low light, whispers, pounding hearts – that was all.
When I saw him walk past my staircase while we were on the phone, and he always refused to come up.
I didn’t know if he was afraid of bumping into Ashton or Zoe, or if he was just afraid of me.
Of forgetting why he couldn’t do what we both so obviously wanted to.
Whatever it was, it always made him pull away from the kiss just as I was getting so turned on I couldn’t think straight.
The kind of turned on I would never have allowed if I had a choice, because it made my movements jittery, the reactions of my body treacherous, and turned my words to sighs.
It was so at odds with the me I expected of myself: rational, prudent, sensible.
But it did fit the me who felt so complete since finding Blake, so much more than I had been before – the person I had been since we’d begun to share these moments, which he gathered up with his eyes as if he knew deep down they were finite.
So finite they were more end than beginning.
I pushed the thought to the back of my mind as hard as I could.
By now I’d had a lot of practice. Just as I was about to head for the door, I heard someone unlocking it from the outside.
A moment later it flew open, and a girl barged into the flat.
She couldn’t be older than fifteen or sixteen, and she looked so strikingly like Blake that I could only stare at her.
Her hair was just as thick and dark, her eyes serious in a way that made her seem older than she was.
Classic features, and a piercingly sharp gaze that surveyed me warily.
‘Hey. You’re Aspen, right? Have you come to see your brother?’ Blake hadn’t mentioned anything to me, but I knew Aspen had a spare key for emergencies.
‘No, I just came to grab my riding helmet, I left it here last time. The driver’s waiting downstairs.’
She gave me a curious smile, which softened the edges of her face. ‘You’re the girl my brother was texting all through Christmas, right? I recognise you, Blake’s been stalking you on Instagram.’
‘Oh… Uh, yeah, that’s me. Mabel.’
‘You’re in his phone as Pica.’
I bit my cheek, holding back a smile. ‘He’s in mine as Heathcliff.’
‘You guys are weird.’ She stared at me again, as if trying to see inside me.
At that moment, I realised she loved Blake as much as he loved her.
Which only made the idea sprouting at the back of my mind feel even meaner.
Over the past two weeks, Blake and I hadn’t talked about the League of Starlings, although I couldn’t help thinking about it when we were together.
This could be my chance to get more information, something that would make it easier for me to mentally separately them from Blake.
I took a tentative step towards Aspen. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Sure.’ Aspen unwound the scarf from her neck.
‘Do you know Blake’s friend Ashton Griffin?’
She paused. ‘I know the face, yeah. They’ve been hanging out for like two years.
I don’t know how they met, but they were inseparable basically from day one.
After he finished school, Blake just kind of bummed around for a couple of years.
It wasn’t until he met Ashton that he applied to Cambridge. ’
I frowned. ‘He didn’t want to go to university before then?’
Aspen hesitated. Wadding the scarf into a ball, she chucked it onto the sofa then plumped down on the armrest. ‘Look, don’t judge him, okay?
Or me, for telling you, but Blake used to be a massive arsehole.
’ She pulled a face. ‘I mean, he was really horrible. Plus he was a total fuck-up – if it hadn’t been for Mum and Dad, he’d definitely have been arrested, like, a lot.
Drink-driving, breaking into places with his mates from school, getting into fistfights and… ’ She trailed off.
I was breathing so haltingly that for a moment I couldn’t get the question out. ‘And what?’
She was frowning. ‘Look … I shouldn’t have told you that … I mean, if Blake hasn’t told you himself… It was wrong of me, to—’
‘I’m not judging him,’ I jumped in. ‘Really, it’s not like I thought he was some sort of goody-two-shoes.’ I smiled reassuringly.
She nodded. ‘I get it. A girl wants the intel on her new man.’
I hesitated, then shrugged.
‘Okay, I’m not even supposed to know this, but …
just before he left school, he got into serious trouble.
This girl in his class made a complaint against him.
She accused Blake of…’ She paused, and I suddenly didn’t want her to keep going.
I didn’t want to hear it, think it, feel it: it was like she’d punched me in the face.
Or reached directly into my mind, the words planting images there I didn’t want to see.
‘They tried to hide it from me, but I knew what was going on. Blake didn’t take any of it seriously, like usual.
So Mum and Dad talked to her. I think they gave her money.
And if she took it, that means it wasn’t true, right? ’
It felt like she was telling me about a stranger. It couldn’t possibly be him. I’d sensed Blake was keeping secrets, dark secrets, but this … this was so awful I couldn’t square it with the person I knew. It couldn’t be. It mustn’t.
I forced a reassuring smile to my lips, which quivered traitorously. ‘Yeah, absolutely.’
Aspen grinned, relieved. ‘Well, either way, he was such a dick. And then he met Ashton and … I don’t know, ever since then he’s been a different person.
He’s the best big brother in the world. Even though he lives really far away he’s always there when I need him.
He’s … yeah, just different, I guess. A lot better. ’
‘And you think that’s down to Ashton’s influence?’ I asked without giving away my scepticism. Nothing about the person I knew screamed good influence: that Ashton was conceited, spoilt, smug – that was all.
‘No idea. All I know is that Blake came home one morning with a cut on his face – where his scar is now.’ Aspen put a finger to her temple.
‘And from that moment on, he pretty much did a one-eighty. Sometimes I wonder if maybe he hit his head a bit too hard. But if he did, it was the best thing that ever happened to him.’
‘So, what’s your read on Ashton?’
Aspen wrinkled the tip of her nose. ‘I don’t see him much.
Mum and Dad don’t like him. I don’t either, to be honest. He’s always nice to me, but he seems so …
fake. I don’t know. And one time I heard Dad say that Ashton’s father came and talked to him because Ashton had changed since he started hanging round with Blake. ’
‘He became a better person, too?’ I pulled an incredulous face. If this was the new and improved Ashton, then what the hell was he like before?
‘No, the opposite. His father said Blake was a bad influence. That he barely recognised his own son anymore. He wanted Dad to make Blake stop seeing Ashton. But I mean, how’s it possible that they influenced each other in the opposite direction?
Like, Blake got nicer and Ashton got meaner the minute they became friends? It makes no sense, right?’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ I murmured, desperately trying to make something coherent out of all these details. This is madness, I thought again, but even that didn’t feel quite right anymore. Not if there was any truth to what Aspen had just told me.
‘Do you like my brother?’
I blinked, trying to focus on her. The answer came from the gut, not from my rattled mind. ‘Yes, I do.’
Aspen smiled, more frankly now. ‘He likes you too. You know, ever since Blake had his personality transplant, he’s looked so sad a lot of the time. But when he’s texting you or stalking your photos, it’s gone. That’s kind of nice, I think.’
It’s possible to be happy and to feel like you’re bleeding inside at the same time.
I couldn’t tell where embarrassment ended and uncertainty began, I only knew that my emotions had bared their fangs and were consuming me, the good and the bad, because I wasn’t sure anymore which ones I was more ashamed of.
Before I could say anything else, the alarm rang on my phone. I switched it off and gave Aspen a weak smile. ‘I’ve got to go, but it was really nice to meet you.’
She grinned. ‘Good to meet you too, Pica.’
Not until I’d reached the hall downstairs did I check my phone. Blake had texted me a picture of a half-eaten pain aux raisins, but I could hardly bear to look. I clicked away from the thread and opened my chat with Davie. Although I’d texted him hours ago, my message was still unread.
Mabel
Talking to the professor today. Come meet me afterwards? I need to tell you something.
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