Page 43 of Kiln Me Softly

Relief seeped through Aiden when he read the text message from his dad.

He’d never been more grateful for him, even after the slew of verbal insults he’d been given that weekend and the dread of another summer spent with him.

Abandoning the boiling kettle, he pushed off the kitchen counter and padded barefoot down the hallway to share the news, only sparing a moment to wonder how Juniper might take it.

It didn’t matter. He’d gotten her a chance to stay, and he couldn’t wait to finally shove that weight off her chest and help her breathe again.

‘Juni?’ As he slipped into the bedroom, he found her in nothing more than his towel, the morning light of a new week streaming through the half-open curtains and bouncing off her damp skin.

His stomach lurched, and his cock, too – she’d told him he was beautiful, but no words felt like enough to describe her, especially bare-faced and barely covered.

She smiled, fingers sliding across his rumpled duvet as she fell back. ‘I’m trying to get ready. I really, really am. I’m just’ – a yawn – ‘tired and hungry and I still haven’t figured out what to do about this contest, and have I mentioned I’m tired?’

He smiled, convinced he could listen to her babble all day, especially when she was sprawled on his mattress, thighs kicking off the edge. ‘Maybe you don’t need to worry about the contest anymore.’

He inched forward, glad when she sat up again to straighten out her towel. It tried to come apart over her chest, causing her to pinch it together. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Don’t be mad, okay?’

She frowned as though she was already preparing herself to be just that. ‘I’ll be mad if I want to be mad. What are you going to tell me, Aiden?’

‘I got you an interview with RACA’s funding director. They’re considering reinstating your bursary.’

‘How do you know about my bursary?’ Her voice was low. Dangerous. ‘I never told you I had one, let alone that I lost it.’

He steeled himself against it, heart pounding.

‘Luc let it slip, and I forced it out of them. But it doesn’t matter, Juni, because this could make everything okay.

You wouldn’t have to work yourself to exhaustion anymore.

You could take fewer shifts, forget about the contest entirely. You’re going to be okay, now.’

Juniper’s face crumpled in confusion. She shook her head, pushing herself off the bed and putting space between them, damp hair curling around the nape of her neck like the snakes she’d sculpted for Medusa.

‘How long have you known?’ she demanded.

‘I don’t know. Since last week. Does it matter?’

‘It matters that you’ve gone behind my back!’

He grappled for the right thing to say, suddenly feeling like it didn’t exist. ‘Luc didn’t mean to tell me, all right? But when I found out, I had to help you.’

‘So, what, you did the one thing you apparently hate? You used your name, your privilege, to get me an interview?’ She gasped, covering her mouth with trembling hands. ‘That was why you saw your dad. Did you ask him to do this? To convince RACA to give me special treatment?’

White spots danced across his vision as panic set in. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to be glad, relieved. She was supposed to see how much she meant to him.

‘I had to do something,’ he uttered, trying to keep his voice soft even when it cracked. ‘I couldn’t see you so miserable, and you deserve that bursary.’

‘I feel sick.’ Juniper began searching the floor, snatching up her jeans and clumsily stepping into them. She yanked them up over sticky knees, breath heaving out of her as though it had taken every bit of energy. ‘Did you get Luc an interview, too? Tell me you fucking did, Aiden.’

Aiden squeezed his eyes closed. Okay, maybe he did look like a piece of shit this way, but he had asked Luc in the hotel the night before, and they’d refused his help.

They’d also warned him this might happen, but…

‘Luc is fine without it. I asked Dad to consider putting his funds into RACA to help everyone who was affected, but he never would. This was all I could do. For you.’

‘I can’t believe it.’ She found her jumper on the opposite side of the room. He tried to grab her, stop her, but she reared back like she couldn’t stand the sight of him, let alone his touch. ‘I can’t believe that for a minute, I trusted you.’

‘Juniper, I wasn’t trying to hurt you, I was trying to bloody help you – and I have!’

‘No.’ Her laugh was bitter, cutting, and he flinched. ‘No, you proved yourself to be the same person who took everything from me!’

Now, it was Aiden’s turn to be confused. ‘What are you talking about? What have I ever taken from you?’

‘Oh, come on. You’re not that dense!’ Her voice was muffled by the jumper she thrust on over her towel, wonky and twisted so that the seam ran up her stomach instead of her side.

She seemed not to care, throwing the towel on the bed.

‘I wanted a place at Elmington, too. I applied for a combined fine arts and ceramic design course.’ He couldn’t remember seeing her on the day of the interviews, but then, he’d been swept up in all the peers who had wanted to be his friend, eager to ask him about his life.

‘I was waiting outside the office for my mum to come and pick me up, and guess who I heard bribing the fucking dean?’

The colour leached from Aiden’s face. No …

‘Your dad. Since they only take on one artist from each county, needless to say, I didn’t get a place on the course – but you did.

Why would they choose the some thick, poor nobody like me when they had Whittaker money in their pocket?

You pay your way through everything, and now you’re doing the same for me!

Who knew sleeping with a rich prick would get me some perks, right?

’ She was yelling now, angrier than he’d ever seen her.

Aiden grabbed his dresser to support his weak legs, trying to take it all in – but he couldn’t.

He was far away from his body, looking at the destruction from miles above.

‘I didn’t know, Juni. I swear, I didn’t.’

She scoffed. ‘You will never know what it feels like to have to work for something. You’ll never know what it feels like to be told no, not because you’re not talented enough, but because you just don’t belong. I don’t want your help, Aiden. I don’t want anything to do with you ever again.’

He didn’t know what to say, what to do. All of that hatred he’d worked so hard to make disappear was back with a vengeance, and all because he’d wanted the best for her.

‘Juniper, please.’ He sounded pathetic even to his own ears as he tried to grab her hand, but she snatched it away.

‘No,’ she snarled. ‘No, stuff your pleas and apologies, Aiden. I don’t want them. I don’t want this.’

I don’t want you . It might not have been said, but he heard it all the same, and it felt like a crack forming all the way from his sternum to his gut. I love you , he wanted to shout, but he already knew she wouldn’t want to hear it. Hadn’t wanted to even before.

‘You should give that interview to Luc, or someone else who needs it,’ she muttered. ‘And you should stay away from me, because we’re done. We’re really, really done.’

Her voice shuddered with the threat of tears, and that crack stretched farther, to the floor beneath his feet. Last night, he’d been falling for her. Now, he was falling without her, because of her, and his entire body felt the impact when he reached the bottom.

He thought he’d known pain before, but this… This might just be the thing that destroyed him.

She stormed away, down the hallway, and he watched from his bedroom as she kicked on her boots without even bothering to tie the laces.

And then she was gone, the only thing left of her the whistling remnants of his door slamming.

Aiden let out something between a bellow and a sob, throwing his phone as far away as he could get it so that he wouldn’t have to see that text. It collided with the nearest wall, landing on the floor with a cracked, black screen.

Juniper was right. He’d done the thing he claimed to have despised, used his dad to win her over, to keep her here. And she was the one person in the world who would never be impressed with it, never ask him for anything.

He might just have destroyed the only real thing in his life. Lost the only person who had wanted him despite his upbringing rather than because of it.

No wonder she hated him. Without his privilege, what was he even capable of?

Nothing.