Page 80 of Oleander

“But I told her I loved her, and I didn’t mean to; it sort of just came out the first time. Which I know is wrong, but I didn’t know how to take it back either. And I’ve told her a few times now so she thinks I love her, and I don’t think I do. And like, if I did I’d be more certain about it, right? I mean, I care about her, and I think she’s great and funny and pretty, but I don’t think I love her. Because I don’t think about her all the time and have daydreams about her and stuff, which I think maybe I should. But now she’s asked about Italy and I didn’t know how to say no to that either because if I had, then she’d want to know why, and then I’d have to tell her about how I don’t think I love her. And I’m so scared of hurting her, Luke, and of everyone hating me for it. I mean, Georgia would hate me, and then maybe Alfie would too because he likes her so much, and so instead of all that, I just said I’d ask you guys about Italy. So now it’s like it’s too late and...”

Luke had pulled me into him and wrapped his arms around me. I understood it was because I was crying. I’d somehow broken down and was breathing quick and panicked breaths into his shoulder as he rubbed comforting circles into my back.

“Hey, it’s fine, buddy. Everything’s going to be okay.Shhhh, it’s fine; don’t worry about it.”

“I think there might be something wrong with me, Luke,” I mumbled against him.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, mate. Nothing at all.”

After, Luke sent me upstairs to get changed into work clothes, and we headed up to the big house. It was planting that was to be done, which I didn’t mind half as much as weeding or pruning. I liked seeing the fresh soil turned over, soft and new; the earthy scent of it was always grounding to me. In a way, that reminded me distinctly of Luke. We were laying a row of new pink and white rose bushes along the front of the houseto compliment the turquoise Festuca Luke had planted there already. I could already imagine the end result. The intense blue grass shrub would burst up along the upper level, and the pale pink roses sprouting up and around the lower tier to make it look like icing around the base of a large stone cake.

“She’ll be hurt no matter what you do, you know,” he said when we were elbow-deep in the third trench. “I reckon you’re right about her caring a lot about you, and the longer this goes on the more hurt she’ll be when it does end. Especially if you could have ended it a lot sooner.”

“I know,” I said gloomily.

“But she will be okay.” He reached out to pat my shoulder. “I know everything feels like a life-changing event when you’re young, but most things aren’t.”

“I’m sixteen,” I pointed out.

He held his hands up. “Well, my point stands. Both points.”

And he had been right. I rarely think about Ellie now, not with any deep sentiment, at least. Memories of her, fleeting and faded, would pass through my mind every now and then. A girl I’d see in a cafe who reminded me of her, a stranger’s laugh I’d hear that sounded like hers, and a soundless blurry memory would rise to the surface before sinking back down again. Come and gone in a fraction of a moment.

But some thingswerelife-changing. I knew that, too.

My parents’ deaths had changed everything about my life.

And I knew, even then, that Caspien, too, was one of those things.

I’d thought then about telling Luke. Soil scattered about our knees, the sun beating down on our necks, and the scent of not yet sprung flowers blooming around us. It would be easy to tell him. To give voice to the thing blooming inside me; he’d take it and treat it with care, I knew that. I couldn’t tell him aboutwhat Caspien and I now did on those calls late at night, but I could trust him with the rest, I was sure of it. The thoughts that went everywhere with me, the reason I suspected I didn’t love Ellie, the reason I spent more and more time in Gideon’s library skimming books by Wilde and the works of Sassoon—Gideon had, as it turned out, had a lot of queer literature on his shelves. My most secret hope was that Luke had similar thoughts at my age. That he’d reassure me this was just some by-product of adolescence, the forming of our sexual minds and desires.

But all I said was, “I’ll talk to her soon. I promise.”

“It’s not a promise you need to make me, Judey,” Luke said gently. “It’s to yourself. You’re not the kind of person who leads girls on and hurts them, that much I know.” The smile he gave me was encouraging and it sent a spiral of guilt through me because as I’d known for months, I was exactly that kind of person.

The following Tuesday evening, I was in Gideon’s library – Elspeth had told me he’d been in his study when I arrived, meeting with someone important from London– and so I settled in and made an attempt at an old A-Level English paper: ‘Censorship of the arts can never be justified – discuss.’

I was going rather well when the door to the library burst open, and Gideon strode in with another man at his back.

“…copy is rather old. And I think the fourth edition has a preface by Isherwood. Jude! I hadn’t known you were here.” He was beaming at me, warm and pleasant, but my whole body had turned to stone as though I’d looked at Medusa herself. “Xavier, this is our neighbour, Jude. He and Caspien are quite close.Jude’s studying for his A-levels; he’s an exceptionally bright boy.” He said this last part as though it were something of a novelty.

Xavier Blackwell stood about a meter away from me, so close I could smell his aftershave. Rich and woodsy. Sickening. He wore a three-piece suit, though he was carrying the jacket in large loose fingers. The waistcoat showed off a broad chest and wide shoulders but a trim, well-defined waist.

He held out his hand to me. “Hi. Xavier Blackwell,” he said. His eyes were so dark they were almost black; I could see the flickering gold light of the wall lights in them. He was tanned with a perfect smile and a haircut I guessed was more expensive than my entire wardrobe. “Nice to meet you, Jude.”

Though the pictures I’d seen of him online captured his good looks, there was something else to him. An energy, charisma, which I suppose what some would call it, that gave him the air of a celebrity almost. Though maybe this was just what my mind had done to him.

I didn’t stand but stretched my hand up to meet his.

“Nice to meet you,” I managed, though I was certain my voice sounded half-strangled.

“Xavier is my lawyer,” Gideon explained. “He’s looking to borrow a book, which I am certain is right here...”

I couldn’t stop staring at him. His hair was dark like his eyes, but there were copper touches in it where the light touched. He was almost violently handsome, like some Spartan had wandered out of The Iliad and into Gideon’s library. He was good-looking in the opposite way Caspien was; where Caspien was all pale fragility and dusky pinks, Xavier was black eyes and sharp jaw. Hades and Persephone.

He hadn’t moved, but he alternated between watching Gideon rummage through his shelves and darting glances back at me, curious.

“So, you and Caspien are friends?” he asked.