45. Heart Problems
Heart Problems
Elias
Life’s not a movie, but Spearcrest makes it feel like one.
It’s springtime, that specific bit of spring that feels like summer is already here, which of course only ever happens during exam season.
The trees are in full bloom, petals scattering the air, gathering in lazy eddies around the old courtyards.
A warm breeze rustles the bushes of rhododendrons and wisteria that adorn the red brick buildings—I used to find their bright flowers garish, but maybe I’m getting old—or maybe my soul was starved of colours in the last seven days, because for the first time in my life, I realise how beautiful flowers actually are.
God. What a mortifying thought to have.
Sophie stops her car outside the school and smirks at me when I wave her goodbye with a quick salute.
I pass the ornate gates with a strange mix of feelings bubbling in my chest: relief that I’m back, that Harvard is still on the cards, maybe, and that I’m not in jail.
Dread, too, dread of being around all those rich kids who got to see me be dragged away by cops.
And above all, a vaulting excitement that leaps like flames in my chest, a hungry, sparking anticipation.
I want to see her.
The gravel crunches beneath my feet as I walk briskly up the path towards the Old Manor to sign myself back in.
The air is a warm caress, and it smells like the sun, which is a particular perfume I associate with a particular person.
Like all beautiful things in this world, probably.
Pearls and starlight and white lilies and bluebells and the sun and the ocean.
“Wipe that smile off your face, Lennox,” a deep voice grunts, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Makes you look psychotic.”
I glance up past the pale columns of the Old Manor.
Dimitri Kavinski is sitting at the top of the steps, arms propped on his knees, big body hulked, smoking a cigarette.
He looks worse than I do, and I’ve just spent seven days in a cell, my body still restless and sore from lack of movement.
He looks like he’s not slept in days. But there’s a shadow of a smile on his face when he looks at me.
“You’re one to talk,” I tell him.
“I’m the nicest guy around.”
“That why your fiancée tried to replace you?”
It’s a risky jab, but to my surprise, Dimitri lets out a bark of laughter, looking genuinely taken aback.
“Hah, you fucking dog. How do you even know?”
I wave my phone in the air. “The Inquisitor’s on your ass, mate.”
Apparently, I missed a whole lot of stuff while I was busy incriminating myself and getting myself arrested.
Rich kids, it turns out, are just as good as anyone else at fucking up.
The main difference is that while the rest of us common mortals are trying to deal with our problems, these idiots are out there creating their own.
Interesting—because for all the drama the Inquisitor dredged up, my arrest never made the cut.
Not one post.
“They let you keep your phone in jail?” Dimitri grunts.
“I caught up on the way back.”
“Got nothing better to do? Aren’t you supposed to be some secret physics genius?”
This time, I’m the one who’s taken aback. “Since when?”
“Since all the teachers in this place have been fighting for your cause. They got a real hard-on for you.”
I shrug. “Can you blame them?”
“Sure, I can. You’re ugly as fuck.”
I laugh and climb the steps up to him to grab the cigarette he hands me.
For a second we just smoke in silence, and the air is so peaceful, with the fragrant rustling of trees and the tinkle of birdsong, that I could’ve given Dimitri a comforting pat on the back, if I didn’t think he’d rip my arm out of its socket for doing so.
I wanna ask him about his fiancée and Blaise, and what happened with all that, and what he’s going to do now, if he’s going home or if he’s going to Russia, but I don’t even know if we’re friends enough for that.
And the one thing I want to know more than anything else is the thing I’m the most afraid to ask.
It’s Dimitri, in the end, who lets out a sigh, tossing his cigarette and crushing it with a loud stomp of his boot.
“Fuck, man, ask already.”
I blink. “Ask what?”
“About her.”
“Your fiancée?”
“Fuckwit. Your girl.”
My heart stutters in my chest, a malfunctioning, flawed machine.
“Desdemona’s not my girl.”
“No?” Dimitri sneers. “So you’re gonna let her leave without saying goodbye, yeah?”
I turn sharply. “She’s not been kicked out?”
“Fuck, yeah, she’s been kicked out. Couldn’t get you out without getting her hands dirty, could she?”
But the truth is that she could’ve. Her mum adores her, she would’ve done anything for her, including saving me without Desdemona having to ruin her reputation, miss her exams, get expelled.
Dimitri gives me a sidelong glance and adds, “Her mum’s picking her up today, actually.”
My stomach drops. Sophie didn’t say anything—but she didn’t drive away after dropping me off. I assumed she was doing some work stuff on her phone or something. There’s a lurching sensation in my chest. Why didn’t Sophie say anything? Did Desdemona not want me to know? Does she not want to see me?
Well, too fucking bad.
I jump to my feet, glaring at Dimitri. “You couldn’t tell me earlier?”
“I’m telling you now.” He smirks, flashing white teeth, and tilts his head. “Go get your girl already, man. You’re giving me second-hand embarrassment.”
I flip him the finger and sprint away to the sinister sound of his laughter.
I reach the girls’ dormitories just as Desdemona is hugging her friends goodbye. She’s wearing a white T-shirt tucked into blue jeans, both impeccably creaseless. Gone is the Spearcrest uniform, the ribbon in her hair, all the shiny badges she’s painstakingly collected over the years.
My heart sinks. She’s really been expelled.
Years of hard work, of meetings, of responsibilities, only for it to all end, just like that.
She finally finishes her goodbyes, and when she turns, her eyes fall on me, widen almost imperceptibly.
Those dark brown eyes, like melted chocolate—like her mum’s.
I used to think Desdemona was cold as ice, but when I look at her now, standing in a ray of late afternoon sunlight, she looks like an open flame.
“If it isn’t our virtuous and irreproachable head girl,” I call out. “Getting herself kicked out.”
Which is snide and mocking and gets me some shocked glares and gasps from the other girls. But it’s still better than saying what I actually want to say.
Why did you do this? Why did you save me? Why are you leaving?
Seeing her like this—stripped of her title, torn from her friends, being cast out of the very place she’s spent years trying to impress and honour—hurts so much more than I ever thought it could.
But if she did all this because she told me the truth, the last time I saw her—because she loves me—then you’d never fucking know.
Like the proud, stuck-up thing she is, she narrows her eyes and wrinkles her nose.
“Have you been smoking?”
The pain doesn’t fade, but it’s mingling with other things now. Joy and desire, the relief of seeing her, finally, of hearing her voice, of going toe to toe with her, once more.
“Why?” I’m moving without realising, slow, lazy steps up the path towards her, and she’s moving too, like she can’t help herself. “You gonna put me in detention?”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m no longer head girl, as you well know.”
Of course I know. I’ll never forget what you did, Desdemona, not as long as I live.
The first person to know I was worthless and still choose me.
“I told you not to do anything stupid, didn’t I?
” I say instead, and it’s crazy how much I can’t help the affection that’s spilling into my voice, can’t help reaching closer, wanting to touch her cheek, which looks like pink velvet, or her hair, which would feel, I imagine, like running my fingers through pure sunlight.
“I didn’t do anything stupid,” she says, and she’s almost within arm’s reach now, within touching distance, holding distance, kissing distance. “Unlike you.” She shakes her head. “I told you to give me that phone back, didn’t I?”
“What phone?” I give her my most winning smile. “My lawyer says I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Behind Desdemona, I can see her friends watching, and girls’ faces crowding the windows of the dorm building—every single floor. I don’t even care, because now, Desdemona’s little frown is beginning to melt, and the corners of her lips are twitching ever so slightly.
“That’s because a good lawyer will do anything to protect you,” she says.
“Hm, must be where you get it from, then.” My voice comes out soft, but she’s so close now that I can smell her perfume, her soap, the warm mint of her breath.
And fuck she’s beautiful, and we have so little time left, and really, how was I ever not going to fall in love with her when everything about her is worth loving?
“She’s just like you, your mum. Strong and smart and scary as fuck. ”
“You’re scared of me?” Desdemona says, and her mouth is shaped like I should kiss it every single day, like I should be kissing it right now. “You don’t look scared.”
But I am scared. Of her. Of the feelings whirling in my chest. Of what’s going to happen next, or having to let her go, again. Of what the future holds for both of us. Of what’s going to happen—and what might never happen.
I take her wrist, and she shivers at my touch, instinctively. I place her palm on my chest, right over my heart.
“If I’m not scared,” I murmur, “then why does my heart feel like this?”
It’s beating so fast and hard that I know she can feel it—and her palm on my chest is like a balm over a deep wound.
“Heart problems at your age?” Desdemona says drily. But I think she’s a little bit scared, too, because her eyes are wet and shiny, and her lips are trembling, and she’s making no effort to remove her hand from my heart. “That’s why you should quit smoking.”
“You asking me or telling me?”
Her eyelashes flutter—her cheeks are so flushed I can almost feel the warmth radiating from them. Her mouth moves, as if there are a hundred things she wants to say. In the end, her eyebrows scrunch, and her voice comes out low and sincere—a joke that’s not a joke at all.
“I’m begging you.”
She doesn’t finish the sentence before my mouth is on hers.
She melts into the kiss, into me, her mouth falling open in a silent, hungry submission.
She tastes sweet and soft, which are two words you’d never think to use to describe her, and I have this terrible urge to hold her, to protect her, not just now, but for the rest of her life, to cushion every blow ever meant for her.
“Love,” I whisper over her lips in between kisses. I want to kiss all of her, right now, so hungry my entire body aches. My mouth strays, distracted, to her cheek, her temple. Her hair clings to my wet lips, and her hot breath plumes against my jaw. “I missed you.”
“Elias,” she sighs. “I missed you.”
Her arms are wrapping around my neck, and she’s pressing herself into me, chest to chest and thigh to thigh, her desire like soft fire spreading between us.
“Miss Sutton-Knight! Mr Lennox!” Mrs Kendall’s booming voice shatters the air. “I will thank you to end this obscene display this instant!”
To my shock—and delight—Desdemona doesn’t even seem to register our head of year’s orders.
She presses her lips back to mine like she can’t stop, like she can’t get enough, and I’m laughing even as I kiss her back, laughing as I pull away, thumb pressing into her waist, forcing her to reluctantly peel her body away from mine.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mrs Kendall says, storming from the dorm building. “There are innocent children watching!”
Presumably, she’s talking about the Year 7s, who are pressing their faces to the windows and giggling uncontrollably.
“Mr Lennox, you have no business whatsoever being anywhere near the girls’ dormitories,” Mrs Kendall says, crossing her arms. “Miss Sutton-Knight, I expect more dignified conduct from a former head girl!”
“What are you going to do, kick me out?” Desdemona mutters, rolling her eyes.
“What did you just say?” Mrs Kendall exclaims.
“Nothing.”
Desdemona licks her lips, which are pink and shiny, and it only makes me want to kiss her more, but Mrs Kendall is already herding her away.
“You should be on your way to the front gates, young lady, not sullying the sanctity of these halls with garish displays of affection.”
“It was just a kiss,” Desdemona says, but she’s got no choice but to follow Mrs Kendall, and now Mr North, drawn by the racket, is striding over from the Old Manor, and other teachers are emerging from the buildings, and more students are sticking their heads out of the windows to see what all the fuss is about, and my time is running out, and I’ve not asked Desdemona any of the important questions.
Like What now? And Will you wait for me? And When will I see you again?
All I can do, in the end, is call out: “Desdemona!”
Desdemona stops, turns, eyes wide, swimming with questions, too, with unsaid things.
“Yes?”
I swallow hard. “I—”
Love you. Wish we had more time. Wish you didn’t have to go.
Want you to wait for me. Want to see you this summer. Want you to be mine, properly, for good.
Forever.
“Come on, Mr Lennox.” Mr North has caught up with me.
“Let’s get you signed back in, shall we?
” He wraps a fatherly arm around my shoulders and turns me away gently, back towards the Old Manor, away from Desdemona.
He sounds serious, but he can’t quite hide the amusement in his tone. “Young love can wait. Work cannot.”
He’s right—and no matter what the future holds, I’m going to do everything in my power to never lose control over my own life. I’ll work as hard as it takes to get everything I want, to become the kind of man who deserves the woman I love.
I turn back, one last time. Desdemona’s almost disappeared behind the line of trees, and Mrs Kendall seems to be in the middle of a harsh telling off. But just as she’s about to vanish around the corner, Desdemona turns back for one more look, and our eyes meet one last time.
And then she’s gone.