Page 177 of Oleander

“If you go back there, if you choose him now, then we’re done.I’mdone. I can’t watch you do this to yourself. I won’t.” The threat was the only thing I had left, a last desperate grasp at a drowning thing.

“Please try to be happy,” he said again as he took a step backward.

“I mean it, Cas, we’re not doing this again.”

He was further away now and he had to raise his voice a little to be heard over the sound of the rain. There were tears in his eyes, as there were in mine. “But this is what we do, Jude. It’s what we’ve always done.”

“Not anymore. It’s over. Don’t come to me again.”

He smiled, sadly, and nodded once. “Finally, he learns.”

Then he turned, and walked back quickly the way we’d come. I stood there for a long time after he turned the corner, the rain pounding against me the only thing that made me feel alive.

Gideon was where I left him. I didn’t bother talking off my squelching wet shoes as I walked past the living room, soaked to the skin.

“I wondered if he might actually listen to you this time,” he said from the dimly lit room.

Stopping in the wide doorway, I stared at him, loathing and heartache a ton weight on my chest.

“I think you’ve always been like this, haven’t you?” I said as I went toward him. “Even when you were a child. Maybe your parents loved your sister more, or maybe someone stole your toys as a child or maybe you had no bloody friends to play with, so you began playing with people instead. Is that it? You were already this person well before you got your heart broken. I’m pretty sure of that now.”

I never let him answer, though I wasn’t certain he was going to.

“You know, Gideon, I don’t think I ever trusted you, but I liked you. I cared for you. I even thought you were the reason I was at Oxford, that you were the person making my life that little bit better, I think even up until tonight, I still thought that. But now I know it can’t have been you. Because you, Gideon, don’t care about people. Not even your own flesh and blood, your sister’s son, who you promised to raise and love. Even he was a plaything to you. You ruined him. So much that he thinks hedeservesthe kind of life he’s living now with that piece of shit. You tried to ruin me too – I guess time will tell whether you did or not.” I went to walk away before I remembered something else I wanted to say.

“I’m sorry that someone broke your heart, Gideon, really I am, because there’s no pain on earth like it. But I’ve survived heartbreaks too and I still have a fucking soul. I’m still capable of love. And the fact that you’re not tells me one thing, you’re weak. Weak and sad and bitter and that’s the reason you’re going to die alone.”

His face was a mask, and I realised then that it had always been. “We all die alone, Jude.”

“Oh, there’s a very special kind of alone for people like you, Gideon,” I said and went to pack.

To:[email protected]

From:[email protected]

Dear Cas,

This is the last one of these I’m going to write. Part of me thinks it’s been an entirely unhealthy pursuit, part of me thinks it’s having been able to talk to you like this all these years, like you’ve been here with me, that’s kept me sane. Especially this last year.

Maybe it’s a bit of both: I’ve learned there are very few absolutes in life. Or love for that matter.

I finished my degree. An upper-second. Not a first, but they say an upper-second from Oxford is like a first from most other places, so I’ll take it. I’m taking some time off to go travelling; Nikita, Bast and I are heading to South America. Then, we plan to head north and up into Canada. If we run out of cash or get arrested, then I’ll call you – I assume that would count as ‘something important?’ We’ve planned on staying away for a few months, but we’ll see when we get there. I’m excited, first time abroad and all that. Should be a laugh.

Luke and Elspeth are engaged, and they’re moving away from Deveraux and across the island to look after Elspeth’s mum, who’s had a stroke. You might have already heard that from Gideon.

I haven’t spoken to Beth in over a year; she moved to Manchester with Daniel and they’re running an online recruitment business. At least I think that’s what it is.

I don’t really want to mention this next part because it makes me feel ill, but it feels weird not to: it’s all I’ve been able to think about since Finn told me. He wasn’t saying it to be mean or anything, Finn isn’t like that. He assumed I already knew. He assumed I’d heard it from Gideon. (Finn doesn’t know I haven’t spoken to Gideon since the night in London. I don’t plan to either.What was it you said that night in the rain? Rip it out at the root? Well, I’ve done that. With both of you.)

Anyway, I suppose commiserations are in order. Finn said you married him. In Italy, Verona I think. I’d honestly been unable to process much after that. I still get angry and sad when I think about it, when I think about you with him. About what you think you deserve. I hope there wasn’t a prenup and that it was for the money. Or for the house in Boston. I hope you’re happy, though I suspect you’re not. (This isn’t the comfort I wish it was, trust me.)

I still love you. I think I always will. But it’s like my parents, I’m never going to stop loving them, I’m only going to get better at living without them loving me back. So I’ll be okay again at some point. I’m trying to be happy, like you asked me to be. It’s harder some days than others, but I also know that it will get easier.

I think that’s all I wanted to say.

I’m sort of sad that this is the last one: maybe I’ll write a postcard from each city I visit? Keep them all and put them with everything else I’ve kept. The copy of Dracula you borrowed that day at the beach, the drawing of Falstaff I stole from your sketchbook, the piece of music you’d been writing that day that you threw away – I can’t read music so I don’t even know what it sounds like – the receipt from the night we went to dinner in London, the letter I wrote you when you left me the first time. I forget what else is in there, but there’s a lot of stuff in that box. The picture you painted of me is in a box in Luke and Elsbeth’s loft until I decide where I’m going to live after. I’d like to go back to London – visit those places we went together, again. I think I could be happy there. I managed to save a lot thanks to the mysterious donor, so I might be able to afford it.

Anyway, that’s all.