Harvard was in a knot of people as usual. He didn’t call them like moths to a flame, something bright and useless and ultimately destructive. Harvard was a hearth fire, promising real warmth, drawing everyone in. Arune was with Harvard, too, laughing at one of his jokes. Whatever, Arune. Many people thought Harvard was funny. Arune wasn’t special.
The memory of why Aiden had always resented Arune kept creeping back.
Harvard and the others had been sitting under the trees making Eugene get-well cards earlier, but Aiden wouldn’t make a get-well card for anyone. Not after the last time.
When they were nine, Harvard had gotten sick, and the teacher had suggested they make him get-well cards. In those days, Aiden lived mostly in daydreams. It was preferable to being at home, hoping someone would pay attention to you. In the bright visions Aiden spun in his mind, he was the star of every show, the most important one, who everybody wanted to be with. In every daydream, Harvard was really impressed with him.
Nine-year-old Aiden was making his get-well card for Harvard, which depicted Harvard and Aiden in a rowboat off on an adventure. It was a beautiful pea-green boat, like the boat that the owl and the cat from Harvard’s storybook went to sea in. Aiden’s mind wandered. He found himself staring out the window, worrying about whether Harvard would get well soon and thinking of how nice it would be to sail away with Harvard for a year and a day, and never go back home at all.
Harvard and Aiden paired up to share a desk, and Arune sat at the next desk over. Arune had always been nice to Aiden, but sometimes—like all the other boys, except Harvard—Arune teased Aiden for being short and shy. It was done in a nice-enough way. Aiden didn’t usually mind.
That day, though, Arune leaned over the space between their desks, laughed, and said, “Let’s see what you’re drawing.” Before Aiden could react, Arune had tugged the card out from under Aiden’s sheltering arm as Aiden sighed and stared out the window.
That day Aiden minded very much.
“Quit it, Arune!” he shouted, stunningly loud for quiet mouse Aiden. “That’s not funny. Give it back to me now!”
Arune was laughing, but he stopped laughing as he unfolded the card and saw—Aiden’s chest felt like it might collapse in on itself—the little pink heart Aiden had doodled, hardly even conscious of what he was doing. A heart floating like a bubble on the surface of the blue waters, where the pea-green boat sailed.
A heart with Aiden Loves Harvard scrawled inside it.
Arune’s eyes met Aiden’s. Aiden froze, going quiet and still, feeling every bit the mouse they all called him. He felt like a mouse caught in a trap.
Arune stared. Aiden stared. Time froze. Then a teacher snatched the card.
“What’s happening here?”
“He took my card,” Aiden whispered, and when the card was safely delivered back into his hands, Aiden crumpled it at once. He twisted the card viciously, as his heart twisted in terror at the thought Arune knew.
He understood, for the first time, why his father was always talking about being strong. He didn’t want to be weak and afraid. He didn’t want to rely on someone else’s mercy to be saved.
Aiden never wanted to be the one in a vulnerable position ever again. And he never had been, except with Harvard. He’d put his heart in Harvard’s hands when he was too young to know it wasn’t safe to give your heart to anyone. They were the best hands Aiden knew. He trusted Harvard not to crush his heart or throw it away, to be careful with it.
Even now, his heart was in Harvard’s hands. He didn’t want it back. He wasn’t planning to use it. Honestly, if it were anywhere else, it wouldn’t feel like Aiden’s heart at all.
He just wished he could cut the strings connecting himself to his heart, constantly tugging Aiden in Harvard’s direction, making Aiden long to be wherever Harvard was. Once the connection was cut, Aiden could live perfectly well without his heart. His father would like him better that way. He’d do better that way. Everyone knew he was born to be the heartless type.
“So, there’s a goodbye party on the last night at Camp Menton,” Aiden said lightly, returning his attention to his dance partner. “There are two parties for a camp that lasts only three full days? The French know how to live. But have you considered the most important kind of party?”
“One that’s just you and me?” his dance partner murmured in his ear.
Aiden thought the guy’s name was Colin? He was pretty sure Colin was from Iceland.
“I meant the after-party,” said Aiden. “A more exclusive event, in which one can get into a lot more trouble, and thus have a lot more fun. And I know just the place to hold an after-party. My father’s yacht is in the harbor.”
Colin from Iceland blinked at him. “Your father has a yacht in Menton harbor?”
“My father keeps several yachts along the Riviera,” said Aiden. “What’s the alternative, rent a yacht every time you need one? We’re not peasants.”
Colin from Iceland laughed. Don’t laugh, Aiden thought. What I’m saying is obnoxious. Harvard wouldn’t let me get away with this.
Across a space of swaying lights and warm air, Harvard was laughing at something Arune was saying.
Every time Aiden had to see Arune, he had to face that Arune knew how pathetic Aiden was. That Arune could tell Harvard at any time.
A murderous expression might have flitted across Aiden’s face, because Colin from Iceland sounded slightly nervous when he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Better than all right,” Aiden lied through his teeth.
Nobody was more expert than Aiden at seeming like he was having the best time when he was having the worst time. If other people didn’t know Aiden was unhappy, maybe it wasn’t true.
He just wanted Harvard to stop paying attention to Arune. He wanted Harvard to look at him.
Aiden backed himself up against a tree and beckoned to the Icelandic guy. “Come ravish me,” he commanded.
Naturally, his dance partner came, mouth and hands eager, no more personal to Aiden than the tree he was arching his back against.
The hanging lanterns and the stars were a swinging blur in Aiden’s tired vision, curves of light becoming glittering scythes that might cut, the whole party scene transformed into a brightly menacing fever dream. The only relief was the steady dark of Harvard’s eyes, turning to him at last.
The trees were golden and dying back home, but in this town the leaves were still green, pretending to be summer. Aiden would have kissed anyone to draw Harvard’s dark, steady eyes to him like they were now.
Aiden laced his fingers in his dance partner’s hair—why did anyone have stupid long hair anyway—and drew him in tight against his own body, kissing harder, trying to kiss right through him.
When Aiden started undoing the buttons on his partner’s shirt, Harvard left the group he was dancing with and came over.
“Could I have a word?”
“We’re kind of busy,” began Colin, but Aiden shoved him back, giving Harvard enough space to step in and take hold of Aiden’s wrist.
When Harvard pulled him deeper into the orchard and toward the sounding sea, Aiden went.
“Hey,” Harvard said. “Maybe tone down the public displays of affection a little there, buddy. The… the coaches were looking at you.”