All around them, Kings Row boys were discussing the thieves discovered in their midst. Eugene was wringing his hands. Nicholas waved his own hand, like Yeah, yeah, yeah.
“Can we get back to the important part?” Nicholas requested.
“Bro, Seiji being a master criminal is the important part!” Eugene exclaimed. “He is a terrifying madman!”
“No, he’s not,” said Nicholas dismissively. “I mean—he’s not a criminal. He might be that other thing, but it’s cool.”
“How is it cool?!” Eugene thundered. “How is any of this cool!”
Nicholas grinned at him. “I think all of this is really cool.”
Eugene stared at Nicholas’s grin for a long, stunned moment. “Thanks for sharing your unique perspective on the world, bro.”
“I mean, you two did a lot of strange stuff,” Nicholas admitted. “But you did it to make me feel better.”
The morning light was shining on the smooth walls and the gilt frames surrounding portraits of ancient bearded men. Those old dudes wouldn’t have thought Nicholas belonged in Kings Row any more than the jerks who’d been led out of the room this morning did. Nicholas didn’t belong here, but there were people who wanted Nicholas to feel he belonged.
“But you weren’t actually upset. We got it all wrong. You didn’t even remember those guys!” Eugene protested violently. “We did all that—Seiji committed so much crime—for nothing.”
“You both cared about how I felt,” said Nicholas. “Nobody’s ever cared how I felt before.”
Eugene made a funny long squeaking sound, as though he had a balloon in his lungs and someone had stepped on it, letting the air leak out noisily.
“But, I mean,” Eugene said in a feeble voice. “Like. Your mom cares.”
That made Nicholas think of trying—and failing—to write his essay for Coach.
He remembered an apartment from long ago. He didn’t recall which part of town it’d been in, or how they’d eventually gotten evicted. What he remembered was the light of a nearby convenience store, the flickering neon-red drenching the shattered place in the drywall. At the time, his mother had a boyfriend living with them, and the boyfriend shouted and threw stuff. He’d thrown a plate at Nicholas’s head. He was fast and ducked, though, so it didn’t hit him. Later that night, Nicholas traced the fractures on the wall, and thought about what that hurled plate would have done to his head. If he’d been just a little less fast.
Before then, Nicholas had assumed his mom loved him. Moms did. She was young for a mom, and they didn’t have much money, so sometimes she got stressed or forgot him or yelled, but that wasn’t a big deal. She was nice to him when she was in a good mood or had enough to drink but not too much. Sometimes she’d lie on the bed and hold him and say in a nice low voice that Nicholas should be quiet because Mommy’s head hurt. If he was quiet, he was allowed to snuggle up against her.
After the plate hit the wall, Nicholas remembered trying to tell her, That man scares me, Mommy. He vividly recalled the way she’d looked at him when he did. How her eyes had been hazy with drink, but narrowed with dislike, and profoundly cold. Nicholas had understood, in that moment, that she didn’t care what he was saying. She only wanted him to stop saying it. Nicholas felt as though Mom hated him for making her life even harder than it had to be.
“Nah, she doesn’t care,” Nicholas said quietly. He bowed his head for an instant, then bounced back and looked up. “But you guys did. You cared that I was upset, and you tried to do something about it. That’s what matters.”
This wasn’t a dream of how if Nicholas proved himself worthy, his dad might be sorry he hadn’t been there. Nicholas was aware that the Robert Coste who cared about Nicholas was a figment of Nicholas’s imagination. These were real people, who Nicholas really knew.
“I don’t know how I can ever repay you guys, but I’ll think of something. I super appreciate it, bro,” said Nicholas, and offered his fist for Eugene to bump.
After a very long pause, Eugene bumped Nicholas’s fist with even more vigor than usual.
“Don’t sweat it, my dude. I mean, I almost had a nervous breakdown, and Seiji Katayama is genuinely out of his mind, but… anything for a true bro.”
Nicholas was filled with an emotion that seemed so huge it made him feel bigger, expanding so this much feeling could fit. It seemed as if he could wrap his arms all the way around the entirety of Kings Row. As if he might embrace every one of the absurdly huge redbrick buildings with the fancy windows and the shiny cabinets full of shinier trophies, and every one of the people inside those buildings.
He had to find Seiji.
27: AIDEN
Harvard had said he would come back, but he hadn’t. Aiden waited all night, staring up at the ceiling and replaying the moment when Harvard had gone still and said, This means nothing. Harvard had wrenched himself away from Aiden as though he might catch something.
The slam of the door had echoed throughout their room.
And now it was morning and time to go to class. Surely Harvard would come to class.
Before Aiden left the room, he picked up Harvard Paw and his new friend from where they lay tumbled together on the floor. He set Harvard Paw carefully down on his pillow.
Then Aiden tossed the new bear up and down so it hit the ceiling and back again. Aiden’s careless grin was reflected in its empty glass eyes.
He threw the fair bear, with extreme force, into the trash can by the door.
Harvard Paw looked a little forlorn there on the bed by himself.
“Sorry if you miss him,” Aiden told his bear. “But you’ll get over it. You’ll thank me one day. You were born to be a carefree bachelor.”
He swung by the salle but didn’t find Harvard there. He found Coach instead.
“Where’s Harvard?” Coach demanded.
“That’s what I want to know!” Aiden snapped back.
Coach tried to run her hands through her hair, visibly came to the realization her hair was up in a bun, and scowled. “He was supposed to come with me and do a fencing demonstration in the town hall this morning. My students evading their responsibilities is nothing new, but—”
“Harvard Lee?” said Aiden. “My Harvard? Impossible.”
Except perhaps it was possible. If Aiden had upset Harvard enough, though Aiden didn’t even know what he’d done wrong.
He’d done plenty wrong, obviously. But he didn’t know what he’d done specifically to cause that terrible look on Harvard’s face last night, or what he could possibly do to make it right.
“Have you written your essay, Aiden?” asked Coach sweetly.
After a pause, Aiden shook his head.
“Are you going to write your essay?”
Another pause, then Aiden shook his head again. He tried for a rakish grin, conveying to Coach, Don’t hate the player, hate the game. Coach gave him a look that indicated she had no time for the player.
“Do you want another roommate, then?”
Without a pause, Aiden shook his head. Maybe Harvard would want a new roommate after all this, but until Harvard told him to go, Aiden wouldn’t leave their room.