WILL HAD BEEN hiding in the library with Ramy for all of a week. He had nearly forgotten about that day in German, when Thomas had been so far from reality he might as well have been on the moon. He had forgotten what they said, and how it all began, but not those eyes, which had cut him to the bone.
It was quiet and safe in these four walls, where the outside world was kept out and made impassable by pages of paper and ink. And if Heaven were real, he imagined it would look something like this.
He realised quite quickly that he was entering a lifelong love affair with books. They brought him to another world; to a place where he could pretend that everything was all right, for just a little while. And when he was finished living in these stories, he could close them and put them back on the shelf, in their proper places, where they belonged. Because in the real world, there is always a right place to be.
“You’re an incredibly hard person to find. You know that?” a voice said, from close at hand.
He turned around, not believing his eyes. It was René Picardi, live and in the flesh. Will hadn’t seen him in going on nine days, which, to a fool in love, is nearly forever. René leaned against the bookshelf, grinning cheekily. He had been too enchanted in those first few weeks to realise how irresistible this boy was, especially up close. And, for a moment, there was no one else in the world but them.
“You’ve been looking for me?” he asked, all but batting his eyelashes.
“Well, I’ve been saving my dessert, but you never show up.” His lips perked up in a little sideways smile. “John told me you weren’t coming back. Don’t tell me he was right.”
He felt his hold on a dusty paperback tighten, as his heart fluttered and skipped in time. “I’ve never been missed before.”
René laughed. “Well, I miss you every day.”
“Mm,” he intoned. They stood there, staring at each other.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No. Not at all. It’s just…” He trailed off, looking down at the book and pressing his lips together. He turned it over, glancing at the summary, then placed it back on the shelf with a sigh.
“I was thinking… maybe it’s about time we went on a date.”
“A date?”
“Well, it’s not like I’m conscripting you into some horrible life you never asked for.” He gestured with his chin to Thomas and Ramy, stirring up trouble in the corner. “You could bring your friends. We could fill a travel bag with drugs, steal a few passports, and then head for the border.” He laughed as though he’d never heard anything so hilarious. “Or we could go by ourselves. I’ve always wanted to have dinner at a fancy restaurant, but I’ve never had anyone to go with.”
Will looked down, grinning sheepishly. “I don’t know, René. I…”
“How about I take you to the dance?”
His eyes went wide. He blushed lightly. “Would you really? I’ve been meaning to ask you, but I—”
But René cut him off with a kiss. And that was all it was—a pure, innocent kiss. They pulled away at the same time, breathless, laughing.
As Will watched him walk away, he wished he hadn’t hesitated—that he had just said yes. He ran forward, hoping to catch René on his way out the door. Instead, he emerged from the aisle, coming face-to-face with Thomas and Ramy. They had been standing on the other side of the shelf, eavesdropping. The moment Will caught them, Ramy pulled a book from the nearest shelf, and they both stuck their noses in the pages, pretending they had been reading all this time. And even for all of the stupid, self-centred things that they did, Will couldn’t help but laugh.
SITTING IN THE swaying fields just above the vineyards, Will picked a sheaf of lavender, opening his hand and allowing the wind to blow the tiny purple flowers off his palm. They scattered in every direction, disappearing into the winter wheat.
It was a nice day, all things considered. The wind was cold, but the sun was warm against his back, and made the bitterness of the air seem almost tolerable. It shone through his hair, making it dance like flames.
“What do you wish for when they go?” he heard someone call. He flinched back, shielding his eyes from the sun, and saw a boy in shorts and a white T-shirt standing knee-deep in the wild wheat, bathed in sunlight. On his feet were a pair of old leather sandals, worn for many years. As he stepped into the shade of the maple tree, the sun cut away from his face, and his features were visible. It was John.
Will cleared his throat, sinking back upon the sun-warmed earth. He looked angelic in the morning light. “What are you doing out here this early?”
“I could ask you the same.” He smiled, and dropped down beside him, uninvited. Will cocked an eyebrow at him. “Looking for you. So, what are you wishing for?”
John’s face was flushed, his hair still slightly damp from having taken a shower only fifteen minutes earlier. His eyes were cloudy, as though he weren’t fully awake yet. Will thought about his answer for a moment, as John laid down, stretching out his legs.
“I wish for true love.”
John looked disappointed. He had said something wrong. He was supposed to invent some fantastical thing he could never have, like the moon on a string, and then John was supposed to bring it to him. But true love… that was something only the divine meddled with.
“You already have that,” he choked. “Wish for something else.”
Will sat bolt upright, staring down at him. “No.” Now John looked more than disappointed—he looked as though he were wishing on the lavender that he hadn’t come out of the house, or even gotten out of bed. “Fine,” he conceded. “I wish you would go away. I wish you would leave me alone for once in your stupid life.”
“Fine,” John seethed. He leapt to his feet and stalked off, back toward the house.
Once he was gone, Will crossed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. In the newly found silence, he listened to the sound of the wind rustling the fiery red leaves, and the birds singing to the morning sun, musing to himself what life would’ve been like if only he had pushed John off the bridge, too.
HE BARELY SLEPT that night, thinking of all the ways the coming evening could go wrong. But he did not imagine the one way it truly did.
He rose early, before the dawn, and walked to school in the dark. His ankle had finally healed from his fall, and he was feeling bright and vivacious that morning. In fact, he was feeling so unspeakably alive that he decided to run the last mile—and there were only two of them, mind.
The building was empty when he arrived, except for the teachers, who had unlocked the doors for any early students. Terrible lack of security, he noted, although this time, he kept walking. After all, there wasn’t a soul in sight to string up from the fluorescents. Instead, he went to the toilets near the main office, and hopped up onto the counter, cracking the window as he did. Ramy had given him a package of cigarettes and a lighter on Friday. He had been dying to give them a try.
He was petrified by the very thought of going to the dance that night, and about what everyone would say when he turned up in a dress. He could scarcely think straight. He was shaking so hard, it felt as though his brain was rattling in his skull, which might’ve had something to do with it. He thought about finding a way to break his own arm, or make himself ill.
But as he began musing over all the horrific ways he could go about causing himself grievous bodily harm, he heard someone coming. He dropped his cigarette in the sink and leapt off the counter, darting into the nearest stall. He locked the door and stepped up onto the toilet seat, holding his breath. The door wailed on its hinges, and he heard a pair of shoes whisper across the floor. He slowly leaned to the side, peering through the crack between the door and the wall, completely silent. And that was when he saw the yellow hoodie. Holding a wide-tipped permanent marker, thicker than his thumb, the boy approached the bathroom wall. He pressed the tip against the plaster and wrote: WH = FW. And beneath that: (WILL HARGREAVES = FAGGOT WHORE.)
He didn’t believe his eyes. He covered his mouth, sealing off his breathing. Then the vandal left, and Will let him.
“Done,” a voice said, from outside the toilets—one that sounded oddly familiar. “Give me the money, before I change my mind.”
“One hundred,” said another voice, followed by the sound of paper notes slapping down into a palm.
“Good. Now fuck off, and don’t ever ask me for anything again.”
He did not know how much time had passed before he came back down to earth. Ramy had sold him out for drugs—or, rather, the money to buy them. He crept down off the toilet and walked toward the wall, gently brushing his fingertips over those horrible words, which hardly seemed real. He clenched his fists, wanting, more than anything, to run after the person who did this and beat him senseless. The rational part of his mind told him that the voices had been those of John and Ramy, but the irrational part, which was highly attuned to the loyalties of his heart, begged him not to believe it.
He wandered out into the hall, feeling very much as though he were floating on air. He was determined to find Ramy, who had taken money from his brother to write his name on the wall, but as he took that first step… he found that he could go no farther. The corridor was filled with people, and with noise so loud it gave him a headache. Instead, he kept walking, as though nothing had happened, pretending that he was just another ignorant bystander. But he could not outrun the inevitable.
Ramy mentioned it in the library, later that day:
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“Will,” he hissed. “Come on. I have to show you something.” He let him pull him aside, but not before telling him that he already knew. “Well, I went through all the toilets and blacked them out. I had hoped to get there before you did.”
“Thank you, Ramy.” He laughed, bitterly. So, he regretted what he did. “But you’re too late. Everyone’s already seen it.”
“Well, fuck them.”
“Ramy, I know you—”
But he caught him off. “I’m so sorry, Will.” He seemed terribly sad, as though it had been his name on the wall, and not Will’s. “Do you want to come over tonight? We can get high and eat crisps ‘til we can’t breathe.”
“I can’t. I’m going to the dance.”
He balked. “With who?”
He looked around, lowering his voice. “René Picardi.”
Ramy’s face remained blank, expression unchanged. “Oh,” he murmured. “Well, have fun.”
And then he was gone. It only occurred to Will after that perhaps Ramy had hoped he would choose differently, and that their two-sided betrayal was complete.
THE BOYS ALL came to Maison d’Auberne after school, to get ready. It was a relatively casual dance, compared to what prom would be later that year, but still they all wore suits—that was, all except for Will, who wore the dress he’d bought with John on the last day of summer break. Initially, he had thought he would wait until prom to wear it, but now, he thought that when the time came, he would find something even grander, even more lavish, and extravagant.
John wanted to do his makeup, and so he sat down at the dressing table, while the others watched. It was while he was applying a bloody varnish to Will’s lips that he said:
“Will, I’m not coming home tonight.”
René beat him to it. “Why?”
All of their overnight bags were gathered at the foot of his bed. John stopped patting foundation over the circles under Will’s eyes and drew in a breath. “Because Nasreen and I are going to spend it together.”
There was a moment of dim silence, as the reality of what he had confessed descended upon them. “You mean…” Jean-Philippe began, and John nodded, looking round the circle, before focusing once more on Will.
“We’re going to her house after the dance. If mum asks, tell her that I’m staying with overnight with another friend.” He paused, pressing his lips together. “But she probably won’t, so just don’t scream when I come through the window in the middle of the night.”
It wasn’t long before they were off to pick up Nasreen, who was waiting for them on the curb in a puffy white gown, clutching a pearl-studded handbag. John drove, while Will, René, and Jean-Philippe crammed themselves into the back, so that Nasreen could have the passenger seat. Éloïse was meeting them there.
But before they left, Azra came out and assembled them in the garden, under her apple tree, to take their picture. In it, Will was smiling, hanging off René’s shoulders, and Nasreen was laughing as John’s arm slipped round her waist. It was a happy moment—one which would be framed and hung on the wall for the next fifty years.
Will didn’t quite know what he was expecting to see when they arrived, but it certainly wasn’t every face he’d ever seen in his time at St. Michel’s, as well as many he had not. He couldn’t believe how many people had gathered for what he thought to be such an insignificant event.
That said, they were lost in the pandemonium on the floor. And because it was effectively a riot, with smoke and banners, no one stopped them when they clambered up onto the tables and danced. It didn’t matter what they did, because no one was paying any attention. They danced until their lungs gave out, then went to the toilets, to pass round the bottle of vodka Thomas had handed off to Will at the door. Then they returned to the gymnasium, where the party was being held.
During the first slow song, René held out his hand to Will, and they took the floor, commanding the centre of the room, amidst cheers from everyone but Maël. By then, Will’s heart was beating like mad, and he was so out of breath that he nearly collapsed against René. His head was reeling, and he threw it back, laughing brightly. It was the best night of his life.
When the lights came up and the music died, he asked Nasreen to go to the bathroom with him—which meant that Will went into the girls’ toilets. He felt he had a pass for one night, as he was dressed as and coming in with one, and there was no one else there. And even if there had been, he wouldn’t have bothered them. It wasn’t his brand of violence.
They stood at the looking glass, fixing each other’s hair and makeup, laughing, and talking excitedly about how amazing the night had been—and, as they could no longer avoid, about John.
“Are you scared?” he asked her.
“Isn’t everyone scared their first time?”
He nodded. “It’s so strange to think that tomorrow you won’t be a virgin anymore. It doesn’t seem real.”
She blushed, holding a cupped hand over her mouth, to hide her smile without smudging her lipstick. “I know.”
They went back outside, hand in hand, where the others were waiting for them, leaning against the wall. They had gotten into a bit of trouble themselves, for spiking the punch with the last of the vodka, but had been allowed to stay, and now they were drunkenly reminiscing over what they had done, laughing so loud that people were beginning to stare.
They piled into the car, and John drove them home, narrowly avoiding crashing head-first into a lorry on the dual carriageway, which only made them laugh even more. He dropped the three boys off at the end of their drive, and then peeled away, to take Éloïse home before he and Nasreen finished the night on their own.
Before he knew it, Will was standing with René in the empty, moonlit ballroom, looking up at the angels painted on the ceiling.
“We need music,” René said, shuffling through the vinyl records beside the antique gramophone. “What do you want to listen to?”
Will giggled, completely and utterly blitzed. “Anything.”
René selected a vinyl and put it on. It began quiet and slow. He took Will’s hands and held them up in a partner position, gently leading him into a box-step.
He studied his face, as he never had before. His nose was slightly crooked, and was slightly raised along the bridge, as though it had been broken once before. His eyes were usually pale green, but in the low light, they sparkled like the darkest emeralds. Everything inside of him began to panic as René smiled, and spun him around. He would never have imagined that they would be here now, in his family’s ballroom, dancing to a waltz at midnight. His breathing was strained as the fear tightened in his stomach. He looked down at their feet, his bare, for he had kicked off his shoes before they began dancing, and wondered if René’s mind was racing, the same as his. Somehow, he thought not.
“So, you’re not really a Hargreaves, are you?” Will pressed his lips together, but said nothing. “How did you ever get so lucky?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know, I asked John about you, and that was all he could tell me. No one knows who you are, or where you came from. You’re something of a mystery, Will Hargreaves.” He smiled out of the corner of his mouth. “What, now you don’t want to talk?”
“Not about my past.”
He laughed silently, and leaned his forehead against Will’s. “Okay,” he whispered. He lifted his hand to cup Will’s cheek, gently, and in that moment, his heart slowed, and so did his feet. “Why did you stop?”
He smiled, and stepped closer, taking his hands once more and beginning another box. But René stopped him, leaning in. His eyes slid closed. It was too intense, too frightening to witness. Their lips brushed together. Will tried not to think of the last time his lips had met a man’s—it was his father, Harrison, when he had taken Will into his bedroom and closed the door.
He forced himself to kiss back, with everything he had. He could do it. He could. And before his mind could catch up to the present, they were on the floor. Will was lying on his back, his dress pooling around him, and René was bent over, kissing him slowly. Then he was sitting between Will’s legs, and his ankles were crossed behind René’s back. But just when Will began to think that this might truly be all right, and that this had the potential to be anything other than terrifying, a warm hand slid up his naked thigh.
He went rigid. In that moment, he knew that, even with his soft lips and emerald eyes, René could take him right there, and Will wouldn’t be strong enough to stop him. If he did, no one would ever know, because it was midnight, and they were all alone, in the middle of an empty ballroom, and suddenly he realised that he had no idea how they had even come to be there in the first place. What was he thinking, taking that bottle from Thomas? René’s hand closed round his hip. His dress slid up to his stomach. He wanted to push him off, and run until his heart or legs gave out, whichever came first. The blood was rushing in his head, heart slamming in his chest. René gently pulled away, looking down at him with worried eyes. Will tried not to look terrified, but he couldn’t help it.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, quietly.
Will closed his eyes and leaned his head back, fumbling for words. But once he allowed himself back into the hot darkness of his mind, there he was, bent over the bed, his father’s hands on his hips, holding him steady. And the more he tried to get away, the harder Harrison pinned him down. He was only a little boy the first time it happened, but still Will could not believe how strong the man was, and how weak he was himself.
His eyes popped open. He was hardly breathing, and he did not know how much time had passed since he’d last opened them. The silence in the ballroom was worse than death. He knew he had to say something, but what? Instead, he looked up at the ceiling and choked:
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Get. Out.”
“Will, I—” But Will abruptly pushed up with his hips and bucked him off. René landed heavily on the floor beside him. He sat up quickly, gathering up his skirt and leaping to his feet. René caught him by the wrist and pulled him back.
“Let go of me!” he screamed, voice piercing the air. But René did not release him. He was preparing to bite through his arm if it meant getting away, when suddenly the pressure released, and he was free. He stepped back, coming up sharp against the wall.
“Will, I didn’t mean it. I thought you wanted to—”
“Thought I wanted to what?” he snapped, clutching his skirt to his chest. “Thought I wanted to fuck you in my parents’ ballroom?”
“I… I’m sorry,” he murmured, looking down ashamedly. “Did I do something wrong? I mean, you’re the one that brought me in here.”
Will narrowed his eyes at him. His head was spinning. He did not know what he felt, or thought, or wanted. “I’m sorry. I just… can’t do it.”
“Okay,” he said, in a tone that communicated it truly was.
They stood there for a moment, looking at each other. René adjusted his tie. Will dropped his skirt, which he hadn’t even realised he was holding, and gazed out the window, over his shoulder, at the endless night.
“I’m going up to bed,” he said. “Don’t wait up.”
“HI, JOHN. HOW was your night?” René asked, as he pulled up to the drive the next morning, in his mother’s white 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.
“Perfect. How was yours?” he replied, as René brushed his palm over the car’s sleek, pearly surface.
He looked back at Will, who was standing beside him. “Great. Your brother is very charming when he wants to be.” He opened the door and hopped into the passenger seat, running his fingers over the warm leather. He beckoned Will to come forward with one finger, and he did, leaning down so that their faces were only inches apart. “Shall I beg for your forgiveness?” he whispered, but certainly not in a rude way.
“Of course not.” He held a hand to his face, brushing a thumb over his cheekbone. “I just got scared, is all.”
“Okay. Well, I was thinking… since last night didn’t go so well, there’s this party after the rugby match tomorrow, and I thought… maybe you’d like to come with me?”
He imagined the pointing, laughing, and whispering that would certainly greet him. “I don’t think so.”
His eyebrows furrowed. This was, after all, a highly coveted invitation, and Will was turning him down. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t…” He bit his lip, and leaned in closer. “Because I’m not ready to have sex, René.”
He laughed—a bright, beautiful sound, like the ringing of a bell. “I’m not asking you to have sex. If you aren’t ready, that’s fine. We have all the time in the world. But I am asking you to come with me to a party, to have fun.”
“I’m tired. I’d rather stay home this weekend.”
“Okay,” he replied, and that was it—no argument, no bite-back. He leaned in and pressed his lips to Will’s, softly. “I’ll see you Monday. Enjoy your weekend.” He turned back to John, who was watching the wind rustle through the leaves above. “Ready?”
“Always.” He leaned over. “Stand back, Will. You have flat enough feet as it is.”
He nodded, and stepped back, the toe of his sandal crushing the chalky white stones beneath it. They left without another word. He watched as the car disappeared in a cloud of dust, two red taillights glowing through it. The sound of the roaring engine faded into the distance. He turned around, and began walking up the drive, not looking back once.