49. Ari
Ari
Clara stays in my room, the two of us hiding under the covers like a makeshift fort as we talk through the night, making plans and then discarding them as their cracks begin to show and their flaws become obvious.
But the sun begins to rise and we still have nothing figured out.
It feels hopeless. Even with a year to play with, how am I meant to find a way to lift a demon’s curse?
Or convince Clara’s father that I shouldn’t marry Benedict.
“Could we find a way to make Benedict not want to marry you?” Clara asks, sitting up in bed as if this is the most genius idea in the world.
“How do you mean?”
“Like make you hideously unattractive to him.” She’s getting animated as her idea gathers steam. “What does he absolutely hate in a woman? We figure that out and then that’s what you do.”
“So I take a year to make myself the total anti-wife?” I don’t know if it’s because we haven’t slept or because it’s actually genius, but I’m starting to warm to the idea.
“Yeah. So, we know he hates feminists.” Clara slides out from under the covers and starts to pace up and down my room. “And he hates people being unkempt, right?”
“Right.” Benedict is an absolute stickler for personal grooming.
“And swearing.” Clara is really warming up to this idea now, ticking things off on her fingers and sporting a grin that’s broadening with each item.
“And dogs.” She paces up and down the room again.
“And modern books, or anything that isn’t considered a classic.
” Another trip up and down the room. “And…” she trails off. “You need to help me here.”
But I’ve realised the flaw in her plan. I sit up, drawing the covers around my shoulders for cosiness. “It won’t work.”
“Of course it will. Don’t be defeatist, Ari Haywood.”
“It really won’t.” I pat the bed next me too and Clara sits down. “It won’t work because I already am those things.” I raise my hand in front of her, all fingers curled down towards my palm. “Number one,” I raise my index finger, “feminist.”
“True. But—”
“Number two,” I interrupt her and raise my middle finger. “Unkempt. Or at least I am by Benedict’s standards. When was the last time I wore a hair switch or a hoop under a gown?”
“Yes. But—”
“Number three,” my ring finger joins the other two, “swearing.” I raise an eyebrow. We both know I swear like a fucking trooper.
“I will give you that one.”
“Then dogs. The moment I find one who doesn’t run from me, I’m getting one. And what’s the final thing on your list?”
“Modern books.” Her voice is small.
“Exactly. I’m already all the things he hates but yet he’ll marry me anyway.”
“Why? I mean, I think you’re a total catch, obviously.” She smiles at me. “But why does Benedict?”
“Because he wants to marry into Carmilla’s bloodline. And because he thinks he can change me, mould me into the wife he wants. You know what men like him are like; they want you all the more if they can break you. It’s like a sport to them.”
“Promise you won’t let him. Not that it’s going to come to that. We will find a way to stop this. But if…”
I put my little finger out. “I promise I won’t let him destroy me.”
She hooks her pinky around mine. “And I promise to help you.”
We’re interrupted by a loud knock on the door.
“Who is it?” I call out.
There’s no answer, so Clara goes to investigate.
“Ooh, it’s breakfast,” she says and brings a tray laden with goodies over to the bed.
“Hmm… there’s two of everything,” she says, staring at the pair of plates, the pair of glasses full of freshly squeezed orange juice, the pair of mugs of coffee.
“Do you think someone assumed you had company?”
“I think your father probably had someone watching the room last night to make sure I didn’t try to run away.”
“Oh.”
“And seeing as they’ve included your favourite pain au raisins, I guess people know it’s you who’s here with me.”
“I came through one of the secret passages.”
“I think they might not be as secret as we thought. They found Brody remember?”
“Well I guess that does make sense.”
We fall into silence as we eat our breakfast. All the excitement of earlier, of thinking we could find a way out of this mess has gone. Reality is starting to set in. A reality where Clara’s dad is always a step ahead.
“I think I need to get away,” I say softly as I finish my pastry.
“Where?”
“Scotland.”
She nods. “Your dad. Would you like company, or is the point to be alone?” But the question is soft, she already knows the answer.
I reach out and squeeze her hand. “I need to be alone.” I don’t tell her that she can’t come anyway; she has a wedding to plan. A wedding that I have foisted on her. She would have had another five years of freedom if it wasn’t for me.
“Let me look at the train times,” she says, painting a smile on her face as she picks up her phone. “There’s a train at six minutes past nine,” she tells me. “One change at Edinburgh. Eughh.” She makes a face. “It takes eleven hours.” She looks up at me. “That’s hideous.”
I shrug. “It is the other end of the UK.”
“Let me at least upgrade your ticket for you so you don’t have to sit on the floor,” Clara says as she taps the screen a few times.
I don’t argue with her. “Love you, Clara,” I say instead.
“Love you, Ari,” she replies.
It’s only as I settle into the fake leather seat of the train carriage – and crack open a can of gin and tonic I picked up from the off licence next to the station – that I allow myself to think about him.
The look on his face when I told him he meant nothing to me. That he was just a toy to be played with. He’ll know by now, about my impending marriage to Benedict.
The carriage is empty and so I allow the tears to fall.
I’m not crying for the future I will have to endure with Benedict.
I’m crying for the future I have lost with Brody. And for the pain I caused him. I might have bought him ten minutes – and thank god it was enough for him to make it out of there – but I shattered him in the process.
And I’m crying for taking him to Hele House in the first place.
This is all such a mess. I shouldn’t have taken him there.
I should have realised Andrei is not the kind of man you can trick.
He had this planned all along, or at least the Benedict and Victor element.
Brody was nothing to him. I should have realised that. It’s all my fault.