Neil must have seen the pain on Harvard’s face, as well as the regret. His hackles went down, and he opened his front door a little wider. But not all the way.
“I truly didn’t know how I felt about Aiden,” Harvard told him. “You knew before I did. And I’m truly sorry.”
Neil had nodded, accepting. He had said Harvard could call him if he ever needed to talk. Harvard’s mother had been right about him. Neil was nice, and Harvard liked him. In another world, a world with no Aiden, a world Harvard had no interest in living in, perhaps that could have been enough.
“Bye, Harvard,” Neil called from his front porch, where Harvard had first seen him little more than a week ago and wouldn’t be seeing him again. Even more wistfully, he added, “Bye, Harvard’s motorcycle.”
And that was that.
Aiden wasn’t like Neil, there for a week and then gone, someone whose absence could be borne. Harvard would never stop missing Aiden. If Aiden was gone, all the years of their past were gone with him, and all the years Harvard had ever imagined in the future.
Losing Aiden would be like carving a heart out of his chest and expecting his body to stagger on as normal.
“I understand what you don’t want,” Aiden told Harvard, speaking very carefully. Being careful not to hurt Harvard’s feelings, Harvard thought with a rush of guilt and affection. Now that Aiden knew he could. “Can you explain to me what you do want?”
Not to be like those other guys, who would pine for Aiden long after he’d forgotten them. To be different. Not to be foolish enough to throw away a lifelong friendship for the sake of something that couldn’t last.
Harvard couldn’t have everything he wanted. He had to keep what was absolutely necessary to him.
“I want what we already have. I want to know we won’t lose that. I want to know you better than anyone else, and for you to know me the same. I want to know that I’ll talk to you every day. I want what I can be sure of. I want to be friends,” said Harvard. “I want that always.”
Friends forever. For the first time, that sounded like a death sentence instead of a promise.
Aiden sighed. Harvard could only imagine how relieved he must be.
“If that’s what you want. Then that’s what I want, too.”
His tone was entirely cool and unaffected, but something gave Harvard pause. Maybe it was purely his own masochism.
“What you want is just as important as what I want,” he said slowly. “Do you want anything else?”
Aiden was quiet for a moment, contemplative. When he spoke, his voice sounded shockingly loud after the silence.
“I want one kiss that’s real. To see what it would be like.” As Harvard stared in astonishment, Aiden gave the same looping shrug he’d given before, though his face was entirely different, shuttered with none of that brief new openness. “Call it curiosity.”
No, absolutely not. Had Aiden not listened to a word Harvard had said? Why would he prolong this torture?
Even as Harvard thought that, he was moving toward Aiden. Helpless to resist. Just like everybody else. He hated himself for it, but he didn’t hate himself enough to stop.
He never knew who kissed whom first, moving together with terrifying ease and speed, as though these new moves had become instinct already. As though they would be difficult to unlearn. Aiden seized handfuls of Harvard’s shirt and pushed him up against the glass, his mouth an angry demand, and Harvard only pulled him in tighter. The kiss went through Harvard like light striking through a window or fire through brush, hot and vivid.
The setting sun burned a red line against the darkness behind Harvard’s eyelids. Not a sword wielded but a spear thrown in the darkness, with no way to know whom it might hit or hurt.
Aiden’s hand went behind Harvard’s head so Harvard wouldn’t hurt himself without breaking the kiss, starving and soothing, biting and gentling at once. They were almost clinging together and almost clawing at each other, and Harvard had to stop this, had to, but he couldn’t find the words.
Sunk lower than the sun and trembling, Aiden whispered, “Arrêt.”
When Harvard let go his desperate hold on Aiden’s fencing jacket, Aiden whirled and ran. The door slamming behind him echoed all throughout their room. Harvard listened to Aiden’s retreating footsteps echoing down the hallways of Kings Row. He turned his face to the wall and the window, leaning his forehead against the cold glass. He kept his eyes closed until the sun had set and he’d convinced his wildly beating and breaking heart of what he already knew: This was for the best.
Then Harvard crossed their room, took the bear from their date out of the trash, and hid it in his backpack. He could take the bear home with him, to keep. Aiden never had to know.
30: NICHOLAS
The sun was setting, and it was almost time for the team bonfire Coach had promised them, when Nicholas found Seiji.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he grumbled.
He felt aggrieved to find Seiji in their room, sitting on his bed and frowning at his screen, with a heap of his belongings laid out on his neatly tucked blankets. It was possible that Seiji was the only one still trying to write that essay. Nicholas had given up. He’d just run suicides until he died or whatever Coach wanted; he couldn’t say any more about his childhood.
“I don’t know why you would do that, Nicholas,” said Seiji. “Searching for your roommate is pointless. You literally know where they sleep, because you also sleep there.”
Nicholas shrugged. “Well, I wanted to talk to you as soon as possible.”
“Why?” asked Seiji. “People don’t tell me I’m an endlessly charming conversationalist.”
Nicholas grinned. “Yeah, and they’re not gonna start. Maybe I just wanna have a chat with a master criminal. You know, for my street cred.”
Seiji lifted his eyes to the ceiling. It wasn’t one of the fancy wedding-cake-looking ceilings like in the halls or some of the classrooms in Kings Row, but Seiji still liked to sigh and stare at the ceiling a lot. Nicholas just seemed to inspire this urge in him.
“I’m not a master criminal.”
“Oh man,” said Nicholas. “I feel all shocked and betrayed. But maybe not as shocked and betrayed as the weight lifters will.”
“I don’t know how everybody in Kings Row doesn’t realize this,” said Seiji, “but money can be exchanged for goods?”
Realization dawned, bright as the sun setting on the heap of not-actually-stolen watches in front of Seiji. Nicholas had known Seiji wasn’t a master criminal, but he hadn’t been sure about exactly how Seiji’s plan had gone down.
“You bought all those watches.” Nicholas was certain now.
“I consulted with my father to see if I could,” Seiji stipulated conscientiously.
“Yeah, I just bet you consulted with your father!” said Nicholas. “You must’ve spent hundreds of dollars!”
Seiji paused. “Approximately.”
“So you bought a huge pile of watches, and then you lied about seeing a stolen stash hidden in one of the students’ rooms, and you made sure Kings Row was buzzing with gossip so the students’ rooms actually got searched.… All before anybody actually checked with the jewelers to see if they were robbed.”