AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Thefollowingmonthisa barrage of work. There is coursework to complete, endless essays, and of course, university application deadlines looming.
I complete mine perfunctorily and submit them early. It’s a bittersweet feeling: applying for courses and universities I would love to attend for the sole purpose of hiding the fact I won’t be going. Being one of the highest achieving students in the school is a double-edged sword, with Mr Shawcross, our head of year, personally overseeing my applications. If I were to not apply, questions would be asked, and Mr Ambrose himself might get involved. This isn’t something I can let happen.
The time I spent at the Blackwood estate taught me something important.
Happiness, the thing I thought would always be unattainable to me, is within reach.
It’s just not something I can keep forever.
But if I can hold on to it, just for a while, just for now, then I will.
I’ll cling on with all my might.
And that’s exactly what I decide to do with what’s left of my time at Spearcrest.
Happiness means allowing myself to sink into my studies, to enjoy my learning. It means sitting in the library with Zach in our spare time and letting him coax food past my lips. It means allowing myself to lean into him while we both work side by side or letting him drape his blazer, still warm from his body, around my shoulders when I’m cold. It means letting him draw me into the shadows beneath a tree when he’s walking me back to the sixth form girls’ building and kissing him breathlessly in the cold night air.
To the rest of the world, we’re exactly the same as we always were. During our literature classes, our discussions are as heated and argumentative as ever. In the Apostles meetings, we debate like warring politicians in the House of Lords, tearing at each other’s ideas with verbal talons.
Worst of all are the parties. The tantalising proximity, combined with low lighting and loud music and the burn of alcohol in our veins, makes for a deadly cocktail of risk and temptation. The safest approach is to stay away from each other, but that’s almost impossible.
Inevitably, we always find our way back to one another.
Then the air between us becomes electricity, zapping at our skin, a slow, relentless torture. Our bodies want to touch, our mouths want to meet, but we can’t.
So we do what we do best. We argue and debate and fight.
Any topic will do—and even when we end up on a subject we agree on, Zach will take on the role of the devil’s advocate. Anything to keep our conversation going, anything to justify standing so close.
Anything to help us hold on to whatever shreds of self-control we have left.
Thehalf-termfollowingtheholiday is short and feels even shorter, the last month blurring into an endless trail of gruelling exams. By that point in the year, there are only four of us left in the Apostles programme. Everyone, including myself, is exhausted and burnt out.
So, of course, the Young Kings throw a party. They always throw parties right after exams—probably to offer some sort of release for everyone’s pent-up stress. Post-exam parties usually start off slow and sluggish, then derail into violence or debauchery—or both.
And maybe that’s why I let Camille Alawi pick my outfit for me.
Normally, I stick to my collection of pale dresses and keep my make-up natural and conservative. My presence at these parties is a formality, and I keep my appearance as such. But this time, it’s different.
This time, I go to the party for the release.
The stress of exams and the Apostles programme, the end of my time at Spearcrest looming ever closer, and the pent-up tension of always being so close to Zachary without being able to do anything—they’re all getting to me.
Making me feel like my skin is burning and I need to find a way to douse the flames if I don’t want to crumble into a pile of ashes.
“This one,” Camille says, pulling a dress from out of her closet. It’s crammed so full she has to physically shove herself against her clothes to extricate the dress. “I’ve been dying to see you in this one, Theo.”
I look up from the bed where I’m sitting while Rose tongues loose waves into the ends of my hair.
“Red isn’t my colour,” I say, looking at the dress Camille is triumphantly holding out.
“But itcouldbe,” she says. “Trust me on this.” She waves an arm. “I’ve seen it in a vision.”
I give her a dubious frown. “A vision?”
“Trust me,” she repeats.
My hair done, I stand up, and Camille wastes no time in pulling my silk dressing gown off me. She glances at my underwear, a simple pale blue set, and shakes her head.
