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And it’s barely a relief at all.
Thenextevening,wesit side by side in the library, the green banker’s lamp lit between us, our books and laptops open in front of us. We take turns reading stanzas from Andrew Marvell’s “The Definition of Love”, swapping annotations as we go.
When we finish, we swap poems to compare annotations. My poem is a spectrum of colour-coded pastel lines of highlighter, the annotations matching each colour; Zachary’s poem is underlined and annotated with the same smooth black ink, every inch of the page covered with his fine, spidery handwriting. I’m taking notes of some of his observations on Post-its to add to mine when Zachary reads a line out loud.
“As lines, so loves oblique may well themselves in every angle greet; but ours so truly parallel, though infinite, can never meet.” His tone is low and ponderous. “That’s just like us.”
I stare at him. His chin rests in the palm of his hand; his eyes are still fixed on the page.
“How is it like us?” I ask.
He looks up and gestures elegantly towards the page as if I don’t know he’s talking about the poem. “Two perfect parallels that can never meet—that’s us.”
There’s a sudden lump in my throat I struggle to swallow back. “He’s talking about love.”
“Obviously.” Zach raises his eyebrow, a dark, amused arch. “Don’t look so surprised. You’re quite intelligent, and for all your angelic features and forget-me-not eyes, you’re not naive either. You know perfectly well that I love you.”
It’s a Saturday afternoon in the middle of the school year. Outside, cold rain drizzles from the ashen sky. In the corners of the library, other students sit alone or in pairs, stooped over their books and laptops. The library is silent but for the white noise of raindrops hitting the glass cupola far above our heads.
It’s an entirely ordinary day—or rather, it was an entirely ordinary day.
Now, it’s anything but ordinary.
Now, tension swirls around us in a great glimmering whirlpool with us at the centre. Zachary, with his brown eyes and black curls and the silk sheen of his skin and the assured curl of his smile, which seems to exist only for me.
Only Zachary Blackwood could have uttered something so outrageously reckless with such serenity. Like an archer certain of his aim, he drew his bow strong and shot his arrow straight into my chest and watched it take my breath away with the most tender of smiles.
I look into his eyes and speak in a breathless murmur. “You don’t love me.”
His eyes soften in a way that’s almost unbearable to watch. He sighs, his entire body melting with a longing so tangible it wraps around me like the folding of warm wings. He pierces me with the softness of his gaze, with the naked desire in his expression.
“Ah, of course I do. I love you atrociously.” He smiles, the hue of desire in his expression shifting, darkening into a sort of yearning melancholy. “I love you with every atom of my being, and I love every atom of yours. I love you desperately, like a starving man. I love you to distraction. And I think maybe you love me too, Theodora Dorokhova. You just aren’t quite ready to say it yet.”
Chapter 16
Porcelain Doll
Theodora
Myvoiceislockedinside my chest. After all these years, my father still holds the key. All I want is to get that key back.
The summer before my final year at Spearcrest, my father comes to stay at my mother’s ancestral home, Breckenridge House in Surrey.
The stately home, normally so cavernous and hollow, becomes claustrophobic in his presence, which looms like an eclipse, filling the atmosphere of the house with a heavy, eerie silence.
We all feel the weight of his presence. The staff, who make themselves sparse as best they can, my mother, who drinks a little more wine than she normally would, and me, with the marble egg lodged inside my throat making it difficult to breathe and talk.
Just like he always did when I was a child, my father brings gifts with him when he arrives. Designer dresses in beautiful boxes, a watch encrusted with diamonds, jewellery in velvet caskets. I open each present under his watchful eyes, and my throat tightens when he commands me to try each one on.
I obey him, putting on the jewellery and the watch, leaving the room to change into one of the dresses. When I return in an ethereal Valentin Yudashkin gown, the glittering skirts heavy around my legs, my father rakes me with a measuring look.
His eyes have the calculating aloofness of a businessman inspecting merchandise.
“You are very thin,” he comments. “Does your school not feed you well?”
My entire being recoils at his words like a slug doused in salt, curled up and seething and agonised. I shake my head and try to speak.
“The food is good, Papa.” My voice is a pathetic squeak.
