Page 53 of Oleander

“Saw her grow up. Sad business what happened.” I didn’t know what had happened, and though I desperately wanted to ask, desperately wanted to know anything that might explain why Caspien was the way he was, I didn’t dare.

“Oh, I shouldn’t be talking about that stuff with you; sorry, love.”

Her face softened into a gentler smile, less haunted. “I’m so glad he has you, Jude. That boy needs a good bloody friend.” There was something very specific in her tone, in the expression on her face that I didn’t understand then but which, of course, I do now.

Obviously, I wanted to tell her that we weren’t friends, that he’d made it quite clear he didn’t want or need any. Especially me. I wanted to tell her that I’d tried, that I’d been trying for weeks to be his friend, and at every opportunity, he’d thrown it back in my face.

But then I thought about it…

Had I really tried? Or had I decided I hated him the moment he’d hurt my feelings back at the start of summer and resented his presence in my life since then? How much of an effort had I really made?

Christ, friends didn’t go about kissing other friends and getting hard by rubbing on them. Shame and guilt flooded over me. What sort of friendship had I offered, really? He might have threatened me to come here today, but I’d threatened him long before that. He was right. I’d done it for his own good, but I’d still done it. I hadn’t offered support or advice, not the way I would, were it Josh or Alfie. I’d never even tried – properly – to get to know him.

Yes, he made me feel strange and odd. I might have wanted to kiss him every time I looked at him, but all of that was my problem. It didn’t change the fact that despite what he said – forcefully – Caspien did need a friend.

I let Elspeth make us a cheese sandwich, and I carried it on a tray with two cartons of juice and a couple of apples back up to his dead mother’s room.

I wasgoingto be nicer to him.

I wasgoingto be his friend, whether he let me or not.

Fourteen

He looked surprised like he truly hadn’t expected me to come back.

“Elspeth made us some lunch,” I announced with a stupid, cheery tone.

“Do you want to eat in here or somewhere else?” The room felt sacred now, not a place to eat cheese sandwiches, but I wasn’t going to mention that.

“Here is fine,” he said, looking suspicious.

I set the tray down on the floor next to my backpack and carried the plate and juice over to him.

He didn’t say thanks as he took it, just watched me mistrustfully.

He placed the juice on the window ledge before setting the plate on his lap and picking up his sandwich.

We ate in silence, me sneaking looks at him when I thought he might not be looking at me. He never was. I was pretty sure Caspien never looked at me when I wasn’t looking at him. There were always more interesting things for him to look at, though unfortunately, that was not the case for me.

“I wouldn’t have said no,” I said after a lengthy silence.

He turned to look at me, pale blue eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

“I mean, if you’d asked me to come over. If you’d said you needed me for something, I wouldn’t have said no.”

He put down his sandwich and turned his body fully to me. Suspicion still swam in his eyes. “Did you get a personality transplant while you were in the kitchen?”

I shrugged. “Maybe I was just hangry.”

“Maybe.” He didn’t look convinced.

“I didn’t get a chance to eat before I came over, you know, with that whole blackmailing thing.” I took a bite and gave him a playfully pointed look.

“I told you last night I needed you here by noon,” he said. “You should have gotten up earlier.”

I swallowed my mouthful and chased it down with a long drink of juice. He really was the most perplexing person I’d ever met. Every side of him thorny and prickled – a hedgehog had been the perfect description – even the pretty sides. And he was pretty.

Terrifyingly so right at that moment.