40. The Total Loss of All One Holds Dear,‘Friday’
They all sleep in the living room, because nobody wants to split up or be too far from an exit.
They give Orpheus one sofa and Hadley takes the other, the rest of them bedding down on borrowed cushions, with duvets and blankets from Eugenia’s lavender-scented airing cupboard, where everything is meticulously folded and stored by category.
Briar checks that the front door is locked twice, and both times Bastian watches them come back and slide back under the covers; after the second time, he turns to Briar once the rustling of the bedclothes has settled, and they exchange a long, wordless look.
‘Hey,’ Briar whispers. ‘I’m sorry I lied. I should have told you what was going on, before we . . . It just got very complicated’
Bastian’s head rustles against the pillow. ‘Sorry I left.’
Briar goes seeking his hand and finds it, his fingers too cold. ‘Well, thank fuck you came back.’
They can’t make out many of Bastian’s features in the darkness, but it doesn’t matter. Briar knows exactly how Bastian is looking at them right now, just from the way he’s breathing, the sound of his voice.
‘It’s hardly like I have the moral high ground when it comes to . . . manipulating the truth.’
Briar shakes their head, even though Bastian can’t see it. ‘I shouldn’t have let things go so far, when you didn’t know. All the stuff with Mons, it doesn’t mean . . . It doesn’t give me a blank cheque to be shitty to you in return.’
‘I don’t know,’ Bastian says, with false lightness. ‘Perhaps I deserve it.’
Briar realises, then, that they really don’t believe this. Bastian has done plenty of terrible things; but is that all he can ever be, forever? The total sum of his darkest hours - every decision he made out of self-preservation, or fear?
‘I had this idea of who I was, before I came here. And . . . I was wrong. That’s been hard. I always wanted to be . . . good. Without question.’
‘I’m not good,’ says Bastian. ‘I don’t know if I ever have been.’
Briar finds Bastian’s face in the dark, moves in close until they’re only inches apart.
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ they whisper.
‘But also . . . even if it is, I don’t think it helps, to keep punishing yourself.
You know what I’ve done, and I know what you’ve done, and how we ended up here, like this.
’ They take a deep breath, trying to keep their voice quiet and steady.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with what I did to Jason.
Maybe you won’t be able to forget the things that happened here, or forgive yourself for the worst of them.
But . . . I don’t think that means this is all you can ever have.
Maybe . . . maybe we don’t need to be completely good, to be worth saving. ’
The tear that rolls down Bastian’s face lands on Briar’s chin, and Briar wipes it away, then brushes their thumb gently over Bastian’s cheek.
‘You think so?’ Bastian says.
‘I don’t know. But . . . I hope so.’
Bastian is quiet for a moment. ‘The other week I said . . . I told you I didn’t remember you as a hero. But that wasn’t true. You were like that, to me, and it wasn’t because you were always good. It was because . . . I knew you’d fight for me, even if I didn’t feel worth fighting for.’
‘Until I didn’t,’ Briar says, thinking of a letter carved into childish stationary, the desperate expression on Seb’s face.
‘But that doesn’t mean the rest of it never happened.’
Seb’s hand clutched tight in Briar’s as they took the steps at Grove House two at a time.
Briar’s arm around Seb’s shoulder, watching cartoons in silence, after his father had been to stay.
Briar carrying Seb back across that field the day he’d sprained his ankle.
Then, something new - Seb standing by the gate in the yard at the farm at dawn, Mr Wolfe between them in a dark suit, Seb’s face scarlet from crying as, without words, he told Briar goodbye.
‘No,’ Briar says. ‘I guess not.’ Across the room, Orpheus turns over on the sofa, snuffling slightly in his sleep. Briar’s heart aches for him. He’s lost his friend, too, and she’s never coming back.
‘Whatever you do tomorrow,’ Bastian says, ‘I’m with you.’
‘Good,’ says Briar. ‘Because I think you might be our only chance. Ready to be a hero?’
Bastian huffs out a disbelieving breath. ‘Not quite. And I don’t think I ever will be.’
‘Maybe not,’ says Briar. ‘But . . . Bastian, you should know . . . I was telling the truth when I said I love you.’
‘You do?’ Bastian asks, still with that soft note of uncertainty.
‘Yeah. I do.’
‘I’ve always loved you,’ Bastian says, so quietly that if Briar weren’t a hair’s breadth from his mouth, they’d miss it. ‘I don’t know how to be somebody who doesn’t.’
Briar kisses him lightly, chastely, just a briefly lingering press of their mouth to his before they break apart - but afterwards as Briar is drifting into sleep with Bastian’s head tucked into their shoulder, they know they won’t forget it for the rest of their life.
The next morning, Briar wakes to the instant thought that Evie is dead. The sofa is empty; they find Orpheus crying silently in the kitchen, and pull him into a fierce, tearful hug until he’s composed enough to be embarrassed, and push Briar away.
Things feel more dangerous in daylight, more precarious; everyone’s up, tired and subdued, by the time Eugenia lets herself in through the back door at six o’clock.
For the first time in their life, Briar wishes for the darkness of winter mornings, instead of soft sunlight peeking through the cracks in the curtains at such an ungodly hour.
‘It’s bad out there,’ she says. ‘You need to make a plan, quick.’
‘We will,’ says Westby, coming off almost shy. ‘But first, er, Genie - Eugenia - I wonder if you wouldn’t indulge us a bit of an experiment.’
She reads the pledge quickly, like it’s a dull memo slipped onto her desk in her office, then hands it back to Westby, her stand-in secretary.
‘Hold on,’ she says, when Briar hands her the text. ‘Is this Temple property? From the attic?’
‘I mean, you said not to bring any scholars up,’ Briar says weakly. ‘Not that I couldn’t bring any books down.’
‘You are not going to escape the gallows on a technicality,’ Eugenia says darkly, before her eyes skim the introduction. She’s reading with a bored expression on her face at first, and then she freezes and her eyes widen a fraction.
‘So you can understand it?’ Westby asks.
Eugenia looks around at them all, her mouth slightly open, her face unreadable. Finally she says, ‘Have you little motherfuckers turned me into a goddamned magician?’
‘Yes,’ says Hadley. Then in the spirit of honesty, adds, ‘And . . . I also ate some of your nice biscuits last night, the ones from Marks less in agreement, more in acknowledgement.
An actual shiver runs down Briar’s spine at the magnitude of the moment, the ridiculous fact of a bunch of eighteen-year-olds - and Orpheus - deciding the fate of the world around Eugenia’s kitchen table.
Westby laughs again, quietly. ‘Why not? What have we got to lose, except everything?’
When Eugenia comes down the stairs, she takes a look at all their faces and says, ‘What are you doing now? Is it going to cost me my job?’
‘Um . . . yes, actually,’ says Briar. ‘I think it will.’
Eugenia sighs, her hands on her hips. ‘Well, it’s a good thing I’m sick of this shithole anyway. I’ll have to find another lawyer for my divorce, but I hate my lawyer.’
‘Divorce?’ Westby says hopefully.
‘West,’ says Tate. ‘You’re gay.’
‘Eugenia,’ Briar says, before they all annoy her so much she walks out on them, ‘we will leave, but when we do - do you think you could get to the attic?’ They explain their plan as quickly as possible.
Eugenia flicks her hair back over one shoulder and puts on her sunglasses; even Orpheus seems taken aback by her cool. ‘Avoid the lawn, okay? Keep your walkie on low, and don’t talk to strangers.’
The second the door closes, Westby says wistfully, ‘I wish I’d slept in her bed.’ Tate pats him on the shoulder in consolation. ‘I could die happy, if only I’d slept in her bed.’