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“So what do you do with them?”
“Wear them. Or, uh, give them away.”
“Give them away.”
“To friends.” Then, “But they don’t know.”
“That you made them,” he guesses correctly.
I nod. “Yes. I just tell them that I bought it.”
I do.
Whenever I give them birthday presents or Christmas gifts and stuff. I usually sew everything over the summer holidays, well in advance, so when the time comes, I can just gift wrap them and tell them that I bought it for them.
So I try again to steer him away from this conversation. “No one knows about this, okay? I’m not even sure why I told you. But please can you just… can you forget about what I said? I’m —”
“No.”
“But I —”
“Because I’ve never felt this kind of rage before.”
“I-I’m sorry?”
His jaw moves back and forth and I swear his eyes, even though looking at me, turn unseeing as he continues, “And trust me, I’ve felt a lot. I’ve felt a lot of rage, a lot of fury. To the point where I thought I was suffocating with it. I thought I’d die with it. With my rage. But I’ve never felt this kind of violence, this kind of fire. This kind of hate.”
His eyes come back into focus. “So no, I’m not going to forget this, Poe. I’m not going to forget that you come up with your own dress designs and then sketch them all over your notebooks. You not only sketch them and color them, you also bring them to life. You fucking sew the clothes together. And instead of handing you the scissors and buying you a goddamn sewing machine, she made it so that you had to hide it from her. And not only from her, but also from the world. From your friends. From yourself. She made you hide your talent from yourself. But that’s not the worst part. That she was a fucking idiot. An undeserving fucking idiot. That’s not what pisses me off the most.”
“So then what?”
“That I did the same.”
“You what?”
“I underestimated you. I underestimated you at every turn. I refused to know you. I refused… And I did it because of her. I did it because…” He grinds his teeth again. “And I thought I was doing the right thing. By leaving for Italy. By leaving the fucking country after what I did, but…”
“But what?” I ask, my heart beating furiously. “What are you talking about? What about Italy?”
What is he saying?
Why did he think it was the right thing to leave?
I don’t get it.
I don’t…
“You’re not hiding anymore,” he says, determined.
“What?”
“You have a sewing machine?”
“What? I’m —”
“How do you sew your clothes? The ones that you make for your friends.”
“I’m… I have a sewing machine.”
“Where is it?”
“Back at the mansion,” I tell him, swallowing. “Mr. Marshall, I —”
“I’ll buy you another one.”
“What?”
“And have it delivered here.”
“To the dorms?”
“Yes.”
I’m so flabbergasted at this.
So fucking astonished right now.
More so than I was last night.
It’s like I’ve entered a different dimension. A parallel dimension.
Where things look the same but they don’t act the way they should.
He is not acting the way he should.
He is not acting like he hates me.
“But I…” I shake my head. “But I don’t think we’re allowed to have stuff like that. I mean, I’ve never tried to bring it here before. Because I didn’t want anyone to know, but —”
“Now they’ll know.”
“But —”
“You’re not hiding.”
“But, Mr. Marshall, I don’t —”
“You’re not,” he pauses, leaning down further, “hiding. Anymore. You’re not allowed to.”
I swallow, my toes curling in my Mary Janes. “Okay. But what about the school rules?”
“Fuck the school rules.”
“But you’re supposed to make this place worse.”
“And I will. But not like this.”
I swallow again. “But I’m a student here too.”
“You’re also my ward.”
“So this is special treatment then?”
“Yeah.”
I look into his eyes. I look at his whole face then. His dense curly eyelashes. As curly and thick as his dark hair. His beautifully high cheekbones that still look flushed with his earlier anger.
I even look at the triangle of his throat.
Before whispering, “I told you a secret.”
An unknown emotion flickers through his face. “Yeah.”
“My biggest secret.”
How did that happen?
How did I end up telling him something that I’ve never told anyone before?
But more than that, how did I end up spilling my secrets to him when I’m here to find out his?
God.
“You’re the last person I wanted to tell this to,” I continue.
He winces slightly. “I know.”
“I hate you.”
“I know that too.”
“Tell me a secret of yours.”
Now he takes his turn studying my upturned face. My messy bangs and my glasses. My trembling lips. Before he whispers, “I don’t. I never did.”
What?
He doesn’t what?
Before I can figure that out, he goes on to say, “And I want you to know that no matter what I’ve done,” a harsh clench of his jaw, “no matter how I’ve acted in the past, I’ll guard it with my life. Your secret.”
