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Zachary:I love you. I don’t know how to exist without you.
Ifallasleepthatnight with my phone clutched in my hand. The next morning, I wake up to find all my texts unread. I try to call her, but the polite robot voice informs me that the number has been disconnected.
She’s gone.
She’s actually gone.
My Theodora.
Angel, rival, beloved.
Beautiful, broken Theodora, whose existence is more precious to me than my own.
She’s gone.
Chapter 44
Brutalist Patriarch
Zachary
EverywhereIgo,Theodora’sabsence haunts me with memories.
Her ghost sits at my side in literature class, her golden head catching the light of early spring, her fingers tickling the edges of the next page as she reads. Her ghost drifts in the corridors and down the tree-lined paths of Spearcrest. Her ghost lingers on the top floor of the library, typing quietly away on her laptop or stooping over her notebook or stretching her slim arms over her head like a nymph tempting a god.
I had decided to stay in Spearcrest over half-term to concentrate on my studies, but two days in, I change my mind and go home.
If I hoped home would be easier, less haunted, I was woefully wrong. Memories of Theodora linger there too, each more heartrending than the last.
Memories of Theodora sitting in my mother’s breakfast nook, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea. Memories of Theodora on the couch in the Blue Lounge, her head on the armrest, Zaro’s pirate book resting on her belly as she read. Memories of Theodora walking through the gardens with Zaro at her side, their arms linked together, the pretty contrast of Zaro’s tumbling black curls and Theodora’s silken gold tresses.
Memories of Theodora in my arms and in my bed, stifling cries of pleasure into my pillows, her body spread under mine, her starlit skin, the sensuous wetness of her.
Each memory is more torturous than the last. Most nights, I end up giving up on sleep and going downstairs to sit at the dinner table with a cup of coffee, distracting myself with research and essays and work, always more work.
Every day, I pull out my phone and call Theodora, to no avail.
Wherever she is, whatever’s happened, she’s turned off her phone or changed her number. Maybe she doesn’t have a phone at all. She might not wish to talk to anybody—or the choice to do so might have been taken from her.
The not knowing is the worst thing.
Zaro comes downstairs one night, wrapped in a bathrobe and slippers, blinking sleepily in the light of the single lamp I’ve turned on. She pulls out the chair next to me and sits down, hugging a leg to her body.
“Hey, are you alright? Has something happened? You don’t seem your usual self.”
I had intended not to say anything, to keep my suffering to myself. But being home reminded me of the time Zaro and Theodora spent together, the easy friendship between them, the sisterly bonding, as though they were already sisters-in-law.
“Theodora’s gone.”
Zaro frowns, her whole face scrunching into her frown. “What do you mean she’s gone? Gone where?”
“I have no idea. Russia, maybe. Her father came to get her right before the end of half-term. Removed her from the school.”
“What?” Zaro’s dismay is soothing in the way it gives voice to mine. “What do you mean,removedher? Maybe they’re just having a family emergency and—”
“No, removed her, as in, from the school. Out of education. He told Mr Ambrose she’s not going to university, that she’s moving to Russia to live with him.”
“What? Can he do that? But it’s not even the end of the school year yet—what about the A-level exams?”
