She opens her notebook again, setting her pen down at the binding. “All right.”
I’d told Ellis, of course, if indirectly. I told Alex. Maybe putting words to this part of myself has already drained the secret of some of its power, because it’s easier now to meet Leonie’s gaze across the table and say, “I’m lesbian. It’s a little bit of a secret…Or…it was. Maybe not anymore.”
To Leonie’s credit, she doesn’t even look surprised. “Oh. That’s cool.”
“It is cool,” I agree, and I grin before I can stop myself. Leonie smiles back. And for a moment it feels like there’s a cord drawn between us, a link.
“For what it’s worth,” Leonie adds, “I don’t think anyone in the house would think any differently of you, if you ever decide to tell them.”
I’m sure that’s true. It’s never really been about fear of exclusion—not lately, anyway. Maybe it just felt like such a personal part of my identity. Maybe I didn’t want to let anyone so close.
Ellis has changed all that.
When evening falls, three of us Godwin girls play rummy in the common room till fatigue takes over. Clara is already off on her glamping trip, although I have no idea how she managed to get permission to skip class for something like that. And Ellis returned to the house after dinner, but she’d darted straight upstairs without speaking to anyone. Judging by the glassy look in her eyes we’d all gathered she was writing, too absorbed in the world of her characters to remember the rest of us existed.
“I don’t know what you did to her over break,” Kajal says as we’re all heading upstairs to our respective rooms. “But whatever it is, it worked. I was starting to think she’d never finish that damn book.”
The heat that rises in my cheeks has nothing to do with Ellis’s book and everything to do with what I did to her over break. I wonder if it’s written all over my face—if they both can tell exactly what I’m thinking, despite my efforts to appear cool and unruffled as I bid them good night on the second-floor landing.
The candles on my windowsill have burned out; they’re stubs of melted wax now, the wicks charcoal smudges impossible to relight. I scrape the wax off with the edge of a ruler. It’s slow work, but I don’t stop until every sign of the candles has been rubbed away. In their place I put a row of colored flat marbles I bought at the antiques shop I went to with Ellis that one time. I’d gone back before break to purchase the pince-nez Ellis had worn. I’d meant to give them to her as a gift for surviving midterms, but I forgot; they presently rest in a velvet-lined case hidden in the back of my desk drawer. Maybe they’ll make a better gift for when Ellis finishes her book. She can revise with the glasses perched on the end of her nose, red pen in hand.
The clock on my desk ticks past eleven, closer and closer to midnight. I ought to sleep. It’s Tuesday, but if I get in the habit of sleeping in too late it’s going to be hell getting myself out of bed for Art History. Eight on Tuesday morning is an ungodly time for a class, but at least I only have to do this for a few more months.
Then summer. Then, I hope, college. The city. A new life.
I’ve sworn off sleeping pills, but after half an hour of lying in bed and feeling equally as awake as I’d been at dinner, I flip my lamp back on and wander over to my bookshelf. I love Virginia Woolf, but to be completely frank, Mrs. Dalloway always puts me right to sleep.
I trail my fingers along the spines, past Oryx and Crake and The Secret Garden—
No.
Time goes still—this moment, this room existing outside the rest of the universe—as I jerk my hand back to my chest and clutch it there, not breathing. The old book is nestled there on my shelf, the cloth binding slowly peeling back from the spine and the lettering of the title faded to gray.
It’s not possible. It’s…I’d finished this, the nightmare was over. I blink, almost expecting the book to vanish when I open my eyes again, like a trick of the light. But no. Nothing has changed.
I tug the book free with shaking hands.
A black dust tumbles from between the pages, scattering to the floor at my feet. I press my fingertips to the cover, and they come away dark.
Grave dirt.
My mind is full of static, a roaring sound that drowns out all else. I open the book, half expecting to find another wilted hellebore bloom.
And there on the title page, in Alex’s handwriting, an inscription:
I never told you that I love you, but it’s true. It was always true.