AIX-EN-PROVENCE, FRANCE

AUGUST 2011

IT WAS THE morning of his very first day, and he was already going to be late. He ran down the dusty drive, to where the bus was waiting. His book bag fell off his shoulder and slammed against his thigh, making him gasp. There was a long, bloody scrape running up the back of it, from when he had crashed his bicycle in the woods. He caught it in one hand and kept running. Behind him, John was panting and red in the face. Will was in the lead, teasing and laughing brightly.

There were three students in burgundy cardigans waiting at the end of the road, laughing and pointing. Will looked down at his bruised knees and cream-coloured skirt, which he’d managed to escape from the house wearing, despite his parents’ disapproval. It was pleated, and fell to just below his backside. He turned round, glittering in the summer sunlight, skirt lifting with the movement of his body.

Boys were not allowed to wear skirts at St. Michel’s, nor to have long hair, but Will’s fell to his chin, and was bound back with a strip of leather at the base of his neck. He looked like a pirate, or a soldier from the eighteenth century. His fingernails were painted with chipped black varnish.

He had taken one step out onto the gallery that morning, and decided it was too hot for trousers. It was a sweltering summer day, and he was feeling bright and buoyant. He was in the mood to be looked at.

Thus far, mission accomplished.

He leapt onto the bus and pulled himself up using the handrail. The driver, who had been waiting for three minutes, scowled at him as though it had been twenty, or as if he were personally responsible.

If someone had asked him why John Hargreaves was his best friend, he would’ve said it was an accident. Their mother would’ve said that they had always been friends. And if you asked John as an adult, he would’ve said that loving Will was his greatest mistake. But if you had asked him at seventeen, he would’ve said: “Because he made me smile.”

The day before, they had been walking along the streets of Aix-en-Provence, fashionably sipping lavender lemonade, dressed in dark sunglasses, blinding white shorts, and unbuttoned shirts flapping in the breeze. Will was practically dancing down the street, wearing platform sandals with three-inch heels. John whispered along the pavement beside him, in plain flat ones. They had spent many summers this way, chasing after each other through the dazzling heat, sitting on the curb, flirting in the most atrocious, broken English with American tourists. They thought it was hilarious, given they were both of full English blood.

It was, in many ways, the best summer.

On the last day, they had gone to be fitted for new uniforms by their father’s tailor, as they did every year. They were the only students at St. Michel’s with custom-made uniforms. After that, they stopped for a light, but refreshing lunch of oysters and salads with lemon vinaigrette. Usually, Will didn’t eat lunch, but this was no typical day, and with John, he wanted to.

On their way back to the car, Will had stopped abruptly in the centre of the pavement. Something had caught his eye. John turned, to see him mooning over a little white dress in the shop window. He knew even without asking that Will wanted it for his own, and didn’t hesitate to take him by the arm and pull him inside.

He had known for a long time that there was something… off about Will. John had always played rugby and bought flowers for his girlfriends, while his brother stood on the side-line, screaming at the top of his lungs. For Will, it had always been boys, and there was nothing wrong with that. They were closer than close. He never he could never find anyone as thoughtful or as kind. He didn’t care what his friends, or his father thought—he wanted Will to be happy, because his smile was like a ray of sunshine. And if Will had chosen to wear a clown costume, John would still walk proudly at his side.

They spent an hour trying on clothes. John wanted him to put on the dress, but Will ignored him. He drew the curtain aside and stepped out barefoot, turning tricks in a blue pastel suit, completely free for the first time in his life. He didn’t know where Will had learned to dance like no one was watching, but he could’ve been a ballerino for the Paris Opera, if that was his dream. John imagined him in toe shoes, leaping through the air. He came out of the dressing room like he was walking the runway, and struck a pose. He’d never seen anyone so confident.

The suit was one-of-a-kind, and so extravagant that there was no price label attached, but the Hargreaveses had more money than they knew what to do with. The dress was six hundred euros. Will wore it out of the shop, so happy that he took John by the hands and spun around. The skirt, lighter than air, lifted out like wings. People stared, but John didn’t care. His brother was the prettiest boy on earth.

ALTHOUGH HE HAD no reason to believe that John wouldn’t sit with him, still he was relieved when he did. John Hargreaves could’ve had anyone in the world, but he had chosen Will.

“What do you think people will say?” John said, sliding into the seat beside him, and settling his bookbag on his lap.

“I don’t know.”

Because Will had decided to break the rules, John had joined him. On his feet were a pair of dusty sandals, which he had worn for three summers straight. They smiled, happy for no reason at all, except that there was something so wonderfully exhilarating about causing trouble.

John leaned in close. “You look pretty.”

“So do you,” he said, without thinking.

John laughed and flicked him in the forehead, but said nothing.

IF THERE WAS such a thing as Hell, Will imagined it would be something like St. Michel’s. It was the first day of school, and he was trying to return to normal life, and the way it used to be, but it was impossible. The world changed, and so did he.

He walked out, into the bright, end-of-summer sunshine, looking for John. A group of girls, seated on their cardigans, which were laid over the wet grass, snickered and pointed as he passed. He knew all their names, although he wished he didn’t. They laughed and flinched back every time they saw him, as if a boy in a skirt was somehow hostile to them.

Will didn’t want to be a girl—not even sometimes. But he was jealous of their hair, and clothes, and makeup. He wanted to be as pretty as they were. He wanted boys to chase after him, too.

When he found John, it was under the shade of an almond tree, with the new boy from Normandy. Almost all the students at St. Michel’s had been there since year seven, and would be until they graduated and went off to university. But there were also a handful of transfer students, whose parents had sent them across the country and paid an exorbitant price to put them in a private school. They stayed in hostels, and with relatives. Some of them even stayed with local families. The Hargreaveses had hosted these students on more than one occasion, but not this year. It was strange in that first week, as everyone settled into their places—until lines were drawn, and reputations established.

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“Will, over here!” John called out, waving to him. “René found us the best spot on this side of the Mediterranean.”

“I’ve seen better,” he murmured, daintily crossing his legs on the grass. He pulled his skirt down over his thighs.

For René, before this place, there had been a life and family in Rouen, although he was born in Greece. He had moved to Marseille during the summer, and lived in Le Panier, along the water. His cardigan was slowly slipping off one shoulder, and his trousers betrayed the slender shape of his legs. His forehead glistened in the early August heat.

Sitting with him were Éloïse Roche and her boyfriend, Jean-Philippe, who they called JP, for short. They were kind, and quiet, and not particularly interesting in any sense of the word. They weren’t frivolous risk-takers like John and Will, who had been that way all their lives. But they were devoted to each other, and falling head-over-heels, in the way only the young do.

Nasreen Khurana was the cousin of Ramy Youssef, who wouldn’t be caught dead with her, or with them. She was pretty in the way few people are, in that she was beautiful inside and out. She had bottomless eyes, so dark they were nearly black, and skin the colour of burnt honey, which glowed in darkness and light. She had a pudding face, and a bit of childish pudge round the middle, but it made her all the more adorable. She was like René—soft, and sweet, and desirable in every way, but so unlike him in every other.

Nasreen had come to France when she was nine years old. Before that, she lived in Firozpur, with her parents, who were lonesome rice farmers that minded their own business and kept to themselves. She was an only child, and so was Ramy. They were both happy to have a sibling, although they would never admit it aloud. She was with John and Will because she had known them since she arrived in Marseille, and because she didn’t fit in anywhere else.

There was an unspoken understanding between them that they didn’t acknowledge the past; that they didn’t bring up the physical and sexual abuse the boys had known at the hands of their father. They didn’t talk about Nasreen’s, who had taken his life after a vicious summer monsoon destroyed their crops, or her mother, who followed after him six months later. They didn’t bring up the things they could never understand.

Will held up the powder compact he’d stolen from his mother’s dressing table, peering at his sunburnt face. He parted his lips, which were cracked and bleeding, but before he could speak, it was kicked out of his hand. It was projected into the air, sailing over John’s head and landing in a clump of wildflowers. His head snapped up, wide, terrified eyes locking on the face of Maël Renault. He was wearing striped rugby shorts, and his cardigan was tied round his waist. Will had never seen anyone who was handsome, yet so undeniably hideous within that it bled through to the outside.

John leapt to his feet, but Maël seized him by the shoulders and shoved him back. He landed heavily in the grass. Nasreen flinched forward, as if to retaliate, but then Maël glared down at her, and all her fragile courage dissolved. René reached out to shield Will from the oncoming hit, but he was too late. Maël had already landed a swift kick to his face.

The world slowed down after that. The planet ground to a halt. Will closed his eyes and leaned forward, clutching his nose. He coughed, and blood burst from his nostrils, spattering across the white of his skirt, raining down upon his naked thighs. For a single, horrible moment, all he could hear was the pounding of his heart and the blood rushing in his ears.

Then time moved forward again, and it was over—or so he thought. Hands reached for him, but he slipped out of their grasp. He was struck once more in the face. Sound and light erupted through the darkness, sharp and blinding white. A small, strangled cry escaped from his throat.

When he opened his eyes, a fistfight had broken out between John and Maël. He could no longer tell which was which, they were both moving so quickly, slamming into each other like colliding planets. One of them slid across the pavement, held down by a foot on his chest.

Will was painfully aware that they were being watched, and laughed at. The calling of the crows was so loud that he didn’t hear the sound of Maël’s partners in crime running up behind him. He clutched the sides of his head as the birds descended, pecking at his skin, and his eyes. They were cannibalistic, bloodthirsty creatures who came to feast on his flesh. They came to take his soul down to Hell, where it belonged.

The world was blinking in and out, and the crows were so loud he could no longer hear himself screaming. Before he knew it, there were hands on his waist, and his skirt was pooling round his ankles. Gooseflesh erupted across his skin. The summer sun had never been so cold. His legs were trembling, knees knocking together so quickly that the sound could easily be mistaken for that of chattering teeth.

Then a crow landed on his head, and sank its beak into the soft skin of his scalp. A thin stream of blood trickled into his eye, half-blinding him.

And then he was running.

AT THE END of the day, he opened his locker, to put his books back on the shelf. He was feeling unexpectedly well, all things considered. When he looked in the mirror, there was even a little, playful smile on his lips.

After the incident at lunch, he had gone to hide in the toilets. He had always been afraid of his hands, slick and hot, had made him vomit. When he opened his eyes, he was kneeling before the toilet, looking down at the strands of saliva floating on the surface of the water. He fell back against the wall, and began to cry.

He sat for a long time, staring blankly ahead, tears streaming down his cheeks. He couldn’t move if he tried.. In fact, he almost didn’t believe that he was still breathing, and thought that if this was what it was like to be dead, it wasn’t so terrible, after all. He reached into his satchel for the tiny blade he had removed from his pencil sharpener and pressed it to the inside of his wrist, slowly dragging it down. One, two, three.

That was when a flash of yellow flitted past the door. A pair of sun-bright shoes, which were completely against the uniform policy, appeared soon after. A hand reached under the door, holding a note:

OPEN THE DOOR. WE’RE GOING TO THE INFIRMARY.

He went abruptly still. He slowly lifted the blade, careful not to make a sound and dropped it, dripping wet, into his satchel. He was lucky that the blood from his nose—a small puddle he was sitting in—was indistinguishable from that of his wrist, and that he’d worn his cardigan that day. He pulled the sleeve down and pressed it against the wounds, blotting away the blood and wincing as he did.

The hand appeared once more, this time over top the door, and another note fluttered to the ground.

I SAW WHAT HAPPENED. I BROUGHT YOUR SKIRT.

(P.S. – YOU LOOK PRETTY)

Those final words made him shiver. The garment, blood-stained though it was, slid across the floor, fetching up at his feet in a heap. He stood so quickly it made his head spin, and snatched it up, stepping in and pulling it over his hips. He looked as though he had just committed a triple homicide.

Will hesitated with one hand on the lock, holding the door closed. He was afraid of who was waiting on the other side. But when they sighed, and one of the shoes tapped impatiently, he pushed it open.

IN THE END, the nurse gave him a new set of trousers to wear for the rest of the day. He agreed with the boy who had brought him to the infirmary—he looked like he’d just walked off the scene of a murder. She had cleaned and dressed the wounds on his face, as the boy sat beside him, watching every her move with intense concern, and perhaps even a bit of suspicion, somewhere deep below the surface, where only Will could see.

He pushed his hand into his pocket, trying to find the tube of lip varnish he had found earlier that day, which someone must have dropped in the corridor. He unscrewed the cap and peered into the looking glass on the inside of his locker, pressing the wand against his lower lip. It came away with a click, stained pale red. His hands were shaking, so it looked like he was bleeding. Bruises stained his face, and the shallow cut on his nose was covered with a plaster and strip of gauze. He touched it gently. It was painful, but not obscenely so.

Grinning widely, he put the varnish in his locker and shrugged on his coat. A tiny, folded slip of paper slipped out of his pocket and tapped against the floor. He unfolded it and squinted at the letters.

WE SHOULD BE FRIENDS.

And that was all it said.