Page 106 of Oleander

Caspien’s gaze flickered with what looked like torment, but then he lifted his chin and stood. “If I am, then it’s perhaps for the best that I shan’t be around to infect you any further.” He reached for the door.

Panic fluttered behind my ribs. I stood. “What do you mean? Where are you going?”

“First, to France, then Sardinia, and after my birthday, we’ll settle in Massachusetts.”

There was a dreadful rushing noise in my ears. “But you’ll be going to Oxford. There’s the entrance exam and the interviews – you’ll have to be back for those.”

He stopped and turned, and for the first time, his gaze flicked to the pile of paper I’d dumped on the bench when I’d arrived.

“I’m not going to Oxford, Jude.”

“What?” I blinked. Not going? I didn’t understand. He’d always planned to go; his place was bought and paid for, and he’d told me that more times than I could remember. “What are you talking about, not going?”

“Oxford is your dream, Jude, not mine. I was never going.”

I shook my head. “No, you said—”

“I said it was where all Deverauxs went. That it was where Gideon went. That it’s where he expected I’d go.” Caspien’s voice had turned a little hard again. “But it’s never what I wanted.”

“Then where will you go?” There was a desolate edge to my voice.

“I’ll be studying at the Lervairè Conservatory of Music. In Boston. I was accepted last month.”

“No...you can’t...I can’t...” Then, I couldn’t imagine a life without him in it. Without seeing him, even if it were only that. Looking at him. Even if I couldn’t have him, I could still love him.

For him to live in another country for years was unthinkable.

I went to him then, urgently, humiliatingly, and I crowded him against the door and buried my face in his neck.

“Cas, no. Please don’t go. I don’t care about him, about what you’ve done. I can’t lose you, too. Just please, please don’t leave me.”

I felt him tense under me, warm body turning rigid. “Stop it,” he said in a tight voice. With great effort, because I was still crushed against him, he turned so that he was facing me. “I cannot love you; surely you know that.”

“I don’t care.” I could barely breathe. I was gasping, trying and failing to draw breath into my lungs.

“Maybe not now, but one day you will,” he said solemnly. “One day you’ll look back on this moment and hate me so much for it that you won’t be able to fucking look at me.”

I shook my head again, violently. “I wouldn’t ever. Cas, I love you...I love you...” I pressed my lips, tear-stained and trembling to his mouth, to his cheek, to his eyelids. “I love you so much, please. Please don’t go.”

He softened. Indulging me for a few moments. I even thought he kissed me back, but I think I imagined that brief softening of his mouth. Then he pushed at me, hard, and I stumbled back.

“Stop it.” He was trembling now, colour leached from him, and a touch of sweat beaded on his forehead. “This is finished now. I am going to Boston with Xavier. He is to start a new firm there, and we will live in the city, close to Lervairè. It is all arranged.” He was still talking when I felt the bile rise up in my throat without warning. I turned to empty it onto the floor of the hut.

“You don’t love him,” I said, wiping at my mouth. The words burned my throat.

“I don’t intend on loving anyone,” he said very earnestly. “And so it doesn’t matter where I am or with whom, as long as I am comfortable and far away from this place.”

Be with me then,I wanted to scream. But then I registered the word:

“Comfortable?”

“Comfortable, yes. Xavier has a great deal of money, and so I shall be able to live the sort of life I wish.”

“But you won’t be happy!” I spat it like a threat.

At this, he frowned a little as though thinking hard. “I am not sure I’ve ever been happy, Jude. So that shall make very little difference to me.” He pulled open the door.

“I could make you happy, Cas,” I managed, wiping at my eyes again. ”If you just gave me a chance, I think I could make you happy. I know I could.”