One

Every story begins with a tragedy. That’s what people like to read - gore and suffering - and I used to be included in that. I used to think that suffering was beautiful, that the human way of coping or not coping was something to be enjoyed through words and descriptions. Perhaps, if I had not lived it, this story would be another book on my shelf. Another dog-eared, well loved copy with Sellotape holding yellowing pages together and the typed words fading off the musty paper. I have had my fill of suffering, of watching and reading about human nature. I no longer need it. The memory of ice and darkness and treacherous roads, the smell of blood on wet pavement, the screech of tyres in the night, and the finality of the weeks that followed have influenced every movement I have made since.

If it had not been winter, if she had not been driving, if we had not been with her. There are so many ways in which our past could have been prevented, or changed, but part of my grief has been to pretend it never happened. In some strange unknown corner or the universe, maybe it didn’t. 

“Watch for the--!” Polly had shrieked, cut off, thrusting a slender freckled arm between passenger and driver seats, then kept shrieking after the heavy thud. The screaming of wheels unable to grip onto anything, the thick scent of blood and burning rubber under my braced fingers before the car flipped sideways. The six of us stumbled out like confused children, patted one another down to check for breakages in the frozen night, stared at one another, then at the smoking wreckage. We tried not to see the broken body inside, the pool of blood, the blind eyes gazing back at us. Further down the road, burn marks scarred the concrete, leading the way to the corpse of the man that had killed her.

 The weeks that followed are a hazy memory of not feeling anything. Of going to lectures and finding her seat empty, or going into the library to work on something, passing her room and not seeing the tightly wound knot of dark hair as she bent over a book. Those endless weeks of not looking the others in the eye, of Alexander’s stoic silence as he bent over sheets and sheets of ink blotted paper. The last project, he insisted, for her. Shutting off for weeks seemed to be the fashion, at least within the group I had found in the last year of my education. If I had been a lesser man, and if the loss of her had angered me rather than numbed me, I would have taken to shooting the deer of the North. But, as it was, I felt nothing. No sadness, no joy, no regret. Just this creeping cold which engulfed our campus like mist or the sea. The quiet which had once been welcome and studious became choking, deafening, and not even the walk down into the village helped. No, because between the village and the university, on the road beside the footpath, those skid marks remained. As did the phantom stench of death, the imagined wailing memory of Imogen crying in my arms, the rushed breathing of James crouched by the car and reaching a white-gloved hand in to feel for a pulse. When his fingers came back to his torso crimson, Polly had vomited into the bushes.

“We have to go.” Alexander, stood back in his long, army green woollen coat, eyelashes black against his white cheeks.

“We can’t just leave her here!” 

“You’re concussed. We need to leave her. We’ll freeze to death waiting for an ambulance. I’ll ring one while we’re walking,” and, in a rare display of compassion, he took her from me. Shrugged himself out of his coat and wrapped it around her shaking shoulders. “James. Time to go.” We didn’t check the other body for signs of life; from where we were we could see the unnatural twist of neck and the pool of bodily fluids. We didn’t need to touch him for confirmation of his death. We didn’t look back as we walked away. I don’t suppose I’ve really looked back, since.

My childhood, what I remember, was dry and hot. Spent playing out of doors away from my mother’s skirts, up a tree with a book or a packed lunch. Independent, I disliked most other children, and found myself drawn to the adults in my life. My grandparents, or my mothers friends, who were at once reserved and raucous, were better company than the grubby kids who hung around at the bottom of my road, snotty nosed and rosy cheeked, sometimes playing with a puppy. A luxury I was never allowed, our flat too small and on the first floor, any animal would have been unhappy. I was unhappy, too, in that detached way in which every child, teenager, is unhappy. My escape came when I turned nineteen, later than I had wanted, but early enough for me to feel smug and superior to the people I had disliked in secondary school. Where I grew up was full of unpleasant children, and worse adults, although in reality the town was so steeped in history that I still find these facts surprising. I think, if I went back now, I would still know most of the people I’d see. It is the sort of place one doesn’t come away from easily, wrapped in green countryside that only the locals knew how to navigate. A Roman walls circled the centre, mossy and secure and older than I could imagine, keeping us safe from phantom armies of a thousand years ago. My marks in school were poor, teenage misery keeping a general intelligence buried beneath bad literature, cheesy films and fights with my mother, until it came to be that only one college would take me. Then, once there, I studied English. Dedicated three years of my life to it, although I never felt like I was learning much of substance. Instead I spent my days bored, clicking at something that I didn’t care about on a computer screen. As far as I was concerned, what I was learning had nothing to do with literature. It was not clever, and neither were the people I was learning with. A collection of gormless individuals, teenage boys who could string a few words together and called it poetry, they were not what I had imagined. There was no passion, no spark, just the desire to get some form of an education so that they didn’t have to go out and get a job. English had happened, just as it had for me, to be the easiest path for them. To delay adulthood another few years. I worked in solitude, and received passable if unremarkable grades at the end of my time there. The natural progression from college to university seemed, to me, at once impossible and inevitable. On one hand, I could no longer stand living where I was, with people I disliked and who disliked me. On the other, I did not have a guarantee that this would not happen wherever I went. Perhaps, I thought, this misanthropy was a failing on my part and not in the world around me. The research I conducted into institutions of higher education was restricted by my location; I did not want to stay too far from home, lest I leave my mother alone. I was afraid of how she would cope, without me, but another more brutal part of me longed for the reaction. The wailing and gnashing of teeth as she realised her only son would be living on his own. As it was, I went nowhere for nearly a year. Instead, I picked up the degree my college offered, in English, in the same place I had been for three years, with the same hateful people.

It took the entire school year of monotonous drudgery for me to decide that enough was enough. Home itself was not offensive, but I could no longer stand its population. I was bored, depressed, ready for a fresh start. The only problem was, this far into my degree, I assumed nowhere else would take me. And there was still my mother to think of. I had finally accepted, in my last six months of living with her, that my upset and melancholy was no fault of hers. It was a bitter pill, which humbled me, yet somehow meant I had her blessing to leave. I was right, though. During the summer I wrote to all the universities I could think of, begging for a chance, just a chance to escape, each time being advised that this was such a small amount of time, I may as well stick with it. So my depression deepened, until all I could do was lie in bed and await the soul crushing restart of what had become a torturous existence. My salvation came to me by post, a thick packet addressed to me, in thin brown paper and sealed with Victorian style purple wax. Inside, a letter on luxurious creamy card, which read;

Dear Mr. Banks,

It has come to our attention that you are looking to move, improve, or change your place of study. We would like to take this opportunity to bring our academy, and my own course in particular, to your attention. Of course, as detailed in the paperwork enclosed, there is a scholarship already available to you, care of one Nicola Boot. Please come to the campus on the date specified if you would like to take up your place, and you will find details of my course and my contact details within the prospectus enclosed. I hope to see you very soon, and that you are quite well.

Yours faithfully,

Lorna Dowland.

Stunned, I leafed through the prospectus. It felt like some cruel, extravagant joke. Who would bother to go to such lengths? I wasn’t sure I believed that Nicola, my kindly, sympathetic tutor, would have any part in a prank such as this. Later, I would learn that she and Lorna Dowland were old friends. The booklet clasped in my hands was full of tempting, glossy photographs, too professional to be a mock up. They boasted, no, promised an old fashioned style of education. The buildings themselves radiated a sense of a turn of the century Oxford, and my stomach ached and mouth watered for want of that clear-aired, quietly clever environment. The rest of the documents, as the letter said, detailed my scholarship, the halls I would be inhabiting... Everything had been taken care of, and I had been given no option of input. Still, I reasoned, what would life be if one did not take chances every now and then? I found Lorna’s page, the summary of her course, in which students were expected to have a passion for words and not a lot besides.. My heart soared. By what the course outline said, I would no longer have to spend days in stuffy computer labs, smiling tightly at colleagues.. I would no longer be working towards a BA in English, but would be a scholar of words in every sense. Even the name, the Wrexley Academy of Fine Arts, had an archaic ring to it. The strange situation, and loss of control, did nothing to put me off, and in fact was the last thing on my mind as I checked that I had the train fare and packed a bag.

Wrexley, in the flesh, was huge and intimidating. Grey stone, broad oaken doors, acres of green fields and browning-yellowing trees, red brick or gravel pathways. And inside, shining marble floors, dark mahogany panelling, intricate painted ceilings depicting Biblical scenes, characters from worldly mythology, enormous English landscapes and mottos in Latin and Ancient Greek. The air was musty, a little damp, and breathing in I felt a settling in my chest which in turn relaxed across my shoulders and lidded my eyes. It had been a hell of a journey from where I had lived, practically from coast to coast I had climbed England and ended in the middle of a forest, more or less. Hidden away from the rest of the world, perched on the edge of a lake, with the nearest village at least a half hours drive away. This information was uselessly disclosed to me by a laughing receptionist, who checked my identification and handed over my room keys, when I shouldered open the door to her office sleepy eyed and husky voiced, a duffel bag slung in the crook of my elbow. Then, upon checking the map tacked up on a piece of cork-board which dominated the wall behind her desk, I noted that my dorms were in the North wing. Classes were held in the West wing, art studios and galleries in the East, then more dorms and the information centre in which I stood in the South. This, I realised with a tired sigh, meant another walk, and more stairs than I had tackled on my journey. Still, I had never lived in a wing of anything, and in crossing from South to North I was treated to the largest courtyard I had ever seen. An enormous fountain stood in the centre, displaying three faceless dancing woman and seating what seemed like half the student body. The wind cut across the terracotta flooring, rattling cracked tiles, while the bushes and trees rustled their indignation at being left so exposed to the stormy autumnal sky, and in the half light, stained glass windows sparkled up to sloped roofs and four spires which held the fortress together at the corners. The building was divided into four, yet remained whole because of these, dizzying and immense as it closed me in. Yet I did not feel trapped, nor claustrophobic, but instead smug. Shielding my eyes from the glare of the sun, I allowed this new feeling to take hold. The scent of cold, wet stone filled my lungs and in a moment of arrogance I realised that I already felt more intelligent. Better educated. As though ones very surroundings affected how clever one was. Of course, then, I did not realise my own vanity, or how it would be perceived by others.

My room was beautiful, full of life and light and on the third floor, my window looking out onto the courtyard and the fountain. Beyond that, and the information centre, I could just about glimpse the very tops of enormous oaks and ashes. The floor was worn with age and use, scratched by a thousand different heels and soles, but freshly polished - which gave the room a vague lemon-scented cleanliness. Under the window sat an ancient pine desk, a chair to match, which shut in the side of a single bed and trapped it between magnolia wall and the taller part of a sloping magnolia ceiling which tapered down to a chest of drawers on the opposite side of the room. I supposed, looking upwards, that I must have been under a set of stairs. Or perhaps all old buildings were built this way, with strange shaped hallways and stairwells that led to nowhere. Above the bed hung a print of a painting I knew well and had a sort of fondness for - the Death of Chatterton. Then, I thought it symbolic of the new love I would feel at this place. Now, I feel it symbolised darker things. Sighing, I sat heavily on the end of the bed and dropped my bags on the floor on either side of me. Already the pressure and rush of my hometown was leaving my body, and that night I slept more soundly than I ever had, or have since.

“Are you sure you’re settling in alright?” My mother asked, in the first phone call of many the next morning. I could practically feel the offence, the hurt which radiated through wires and melted over the receiver. She was stung by my eagerness to leave home, although she would never admit it, by my disdain for the town she’d chosen to raise me in. It was a slight on her and her family and as I rolled my eyes and ran my fingers over the condensation on my window, I sighed.

“Yeah. You should come up. We could get dinner or something in town and then I could show you around.” An offer I knew she wouldn’t accept, and I couldn’t help the fond smile from springing to my face as she scoffed and laughed, and sounded somewhat like her old self again.

“‘In town’? You go away for one weekend and you’ve already got all sorts of airs and graces.” 

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then, shall I?” 

“Have you made any friends?”

“Mum…”

“Alright, alright. I’ll speak to you soon, then.”

“I’ll ring next week.” Not an empty promise. From then on I rang her at least once a week for the duration of my time at Wrexley, but as I put the phone down I couldn’t help the weight of relief in my chest. I had escaped. Not from her but from the place which was so much a part of her that they were often difficult to untangle from one another. I’ll never know whether she was quite aware of the extent of my unhappiness, but I do know that the change in me which came with the first snowstorm did not go unnoticed. Even now, on the occasions she visits, there is a strained silence which will always beg the question: was it deliberate?

“Daniel! Daniel Banks!” Like my name was being called through water, there was a faded and sluggish quality to it. Then came the pounding on the door, and as I opened my mouth to shout at my mother that I was up, that I would be ready in just a few minutes, my brain caught up with my body and I realised exactly where I was. Not in a stuffy room in a town going nowhere, but curled up in the armchair I had stolen from a curb in the village. It was the ugly dusty sort of brown that you’d get in your grandmothers living room, decorated hideously with faded roses and vines, but it was comfortable. The pile of books beside it, as well as the one I had decided to use as a pillow, were in much the same condition; yellowing, pages loose, and lovely. Scrubbing my hands over my face, and stifling a yawn into my fingers, I untangled my legs from one another and crossed the room (with some difficulty - my feet were having a lie-in) to open my door. 

“Yes?” Hoarse and croaky, I cleared my throat and had to duck my head to muffle another yawn. The girl who looked back at me, mouth twisted as though she was suppressing laughter, might have been pretty if she hadn’t cast such a derisive look over my clothes, and craned her neck to look into my room.

“We’re neighbours.” And with that, she pressed past me. “Carol.” As she put her hands on her hips with the early morning light behind her, I had to admit even to myself that I could not find a physical flaw. Perhaps this was the cause of her facial expression, haughty and sharp, somewhat reptilian with it’s narrowed eyes and pursed lips. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything to hand. I’m not much of a drinker.”

“Well,” she paused, eyes settling on my bed, the painting, before she sat down and crossed one leg over the other. I swallowed, and could only meet her eye for a second, before turning to gather up my scattered books and replace them on the windowsill. “That makes you awfully boring.” Carol had one of those voices, nasal and Newcastle, clipped and quick and implying trouble at all times. 

“I suppose it does, yes.” Oh, God, what if I stuck out like a sore thumb here? 

“That painting’s really depressing.”

“I like it.” Glancing at her, and seeing that her gaze was once again on the door, and that her legs were no longer crossed but supporting both elbows as she rested her chin in her hands with a slightly sulky expression. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have to call my mother.” A damn lie if ever I’d told one, but it had the desired effect. She left with a huff and a slam of the door which made the window rattle. A few short moments later, her door also slammed. I sighed, turned back to the window, and rested my head against the glass as the first fat drops of rain hit the pane.

I noticed them a week after moving in, one after the other, like the very first rays of a sunrise after a night of snow and thunder, brightening the sky in my world even though it was only September outside. Despite the infrequent showers, it was still warm enough for the other students to meet on the grass surrounding the fountain, to shelter in the shade of small clutches of trees when the light glared off of the windows on the sixth floor and lit the courtyard up in a shattered blaze. I’d dragged my desk away from the window and discovered a bench beneath, just slotted underneath the windowsill, a week before. It had become my favourite spot, as was obvious by the ashtray piled high with cigarette butts, or the cluster of festering coffee cups which sat by my feet like a loyal stinking puppy, to both collect my thoughts and look over the curriculum I would soon be studying. It was James who first caught my attention, hollering something I couldn’t quite hear across the campus, all skinny sharp edges and sleeves rolled up to his elbows, fingers elegant and long cupped around his mouth as he shouted or lit a long black cigarette with his sunglasses balanced on top of his head. He had a story, just like the rest of them, I would learn. The product of a parentless childhood, lost in a system of foster care and children’s homes until he’d turned eighteen and come to Wrexley to escape. Southern, like me, so that even when he yelled his voice dripped with a studied received pronunciation - something to separate him from the rest of the children, he’d tell me, eyes lidded with drink and desire. Then Polly, dear sweet Polly, her skirt carried with the breeze as she turned to laugh at him, waving her free hand in the air while the other remained in the safe warmth of Alexander’s elbow. They were cousins, although looking at them no one would be able to tell any familial resemblance. She, petite with a heart shaped face and shocking red hair, didn’t even come to his shoulders and with her pale skin and spattering of freckles looked more like a pixie than anything else. Alexander was just the opposite. Where Polly had a sunny personality, he brooded over the smallest things and stood at well over six foot. There was Italian in his blood, on his mothers side. This of course lent to his dark complexion and smoothly curled black hair. But cousins they were all the same, heads bending together during lessons to speak what seemed like their own language, Polly bundled in Alexander’s coat (oh, that coat. I would never see it again after the accident) as we walked through the forest, her tiny freezing hand in mine as she told me all the names of the stars she could remember. Stars that were mirrored in the marks across the backs of her hands and in the spattering on her nose and cheeks, stars which had stories and names in languages I would never learn to speak, but that she knew as intimately as old friends. They were already a family with histories and memories before I started, and although each of them had ties to each other stronger than I would ever know, eventually they welcomed me with open arms.

 It was Archie who first spoke to me, a broad American who smiled easily, blonde curls bouncing in the sun as he jogged to catch up to me one early evening.

“You’re new, aren’t you, pal?” I supposed my startled look surprised him just as much as his speaking did me, because he grinned and shook his head so that his hair fell into his eyes. “Just, I ain’t seen you around before, so I figured.”

“Do you know everyone who goes here?” As I shoved my hands in my pockets, I ducked my head against that damn wind which was ever present and, shouldering open the door to the campus cafe, I let him wander through ahead of me.

“Most people, yeah. Coffee?”

“Thanks.” Squinting at him, I took a seat and watched as he leaned bodily against the counter, dimples appearing on either side of his mouth as he spoke to the barista. The way that the sun fell across the cafe gave him auburn highlights, lightened his eyes and glanced off his glasses to hide the yellowish complexion of his cheeks. I averted my gaze as he came back to me, sitting opposite and placing a paper cup in front of me. 

“I got it black.” His chair creaked as he leaned back in it, eyebrows raised and fingers steepled in front of a long, thin nose. “I’m Archie.”

“Thanks, Archie.” Pulling the sugar bowl towards me, I plonked two cubes into the liquid and finally looked up to meet his eye. “I’m Danny.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Danny. Does this,” he gestured to the space between us, “mean that you’ll stop skulking around in your room like some lame Phantom of the Opera type?” I choked on the first sip of coffee and stared at him, ignoring the feeling of the droplets escaping off of my chin.

“I beg your pardon?”

“We can see you.” Archie hid his grin in his own cup, tipping a wink across the table and leaning forward to throw a handkerchief at me. “You always duck out of the window when Polly tries to say hello. Very unfriendly of you, really. You should come out of your room more, get some sun, make some friends before classes start.” I took the cloth, not really knowing what else to do, and primarily to have something to do with my hands. The mopping up of my mess seemed superfluous. I’d already embarrassed myself, after all. “We don’t all bite, I swear to God.”

“I’m not sure I believe in God.” But he’d put me at ease, had me leaning back in the creaking wooden chair as he laughed.

“Alright, I swear to whatever you believe in, then.” He considered me for a moment, eyes clear and pale over the golden rims of his glasses, mouth slightly turned up on one side. “Living on campus must be a real drag.”

“Not really,” I shrugged, stirring my coffee, running my tongue along the roof of my mouth to ease both the burn and bitterness of the liquid, “there are some good people who live on my floor.”

“Oh God, you’ve met Carol.” His amusement grew from a sympathetic smirk to a full, chesty, musical chuckle. “You poor lamb.”

“She’s alright.” I was almost offended on her behalf - she had, after all, been the only one besides Archie to make any effort in speaking to me at all.

“Sure, sure.” Shook his head, leaning over to pluck the handkerchief back from my grasp. “If you like that sort of girl, she’s fine.” 

“I don’t know what you".” 

“She just has a habit of ignoring social cues, is all I mean.” He held up a hand, draining his cup. “It’s pretty charming at first and then… well.” Shrugged, taking off his glasses to clean them. Without them on, his eyes looked too small, the shadows underneath too deep, his eyebrows bushy and furrowed as he tried to focus. He would tell me later that being without his glasses made him feel naked, made the world around him seem hazy and not quite real. Like something out a dream, and then later, a terrible nightmare which none of us could seem to wake up from.

“Well?” I pressed, elbows on the table, feeling one of my own eyebrows perk up into the tangle of my fringe.

“She, uh. She hangs on to a man, shall we say?” And there was a sick swooping sensation in my stomach as I put the cup down, cardboard landing heavy and damp and almost keeling over with the force of the shock.

“You didn’t"?”

“Not me!” Laughed, holding his hands up as he put his glasses back on, fingers too short and knuckles too pronounced for them to be particularly artistic hands. “No, no. Not me. James. The dark haired one who kind of always looks like he wants to punch something? They had a thing for a month one semester, but it didn’t end brilliantly for either of them.”

“How do you mean?” He had a way of making me feel at ease, that I hadn’t even noticed until this moment, chin resting on my fingers like I was some gossiping mother at a laundrette. Archie thought for a moment, eyes on the ceiling, tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth.

“Bad poetry, mainly. The girl is very pretty but she hasn’t got much of a way with words.”

“I could tell.” Dry, and a little meaner than I was used to being. I wanted to hide my mouth, apologise, but the laugh that erupted from him almost shook the glass from the windowpanes as he leaned across and clasped my shoulders.

“You,” he grinned, teeth too straight, too white, “are going to be just fine with us, pal.”

When we said goodbye he kissed me on the cheek and wrung my hand so hard my bones cracked, and while I promised I would make more of an effort to be friendly towards them, I think we both knew that it was empty. I could see the resolve in the set of his shoulders as he walked away, pausing once to wave goodbye halfway down the path, that we would be friends. He would make me a part of his group if he had to sit on me and force them to speak to me himself.

 Something about the quiet of Wrexley, and the strangeness of the encounter with Archie, kept me up for hours that night. I kept going over what he’d said - about Carol, about me avoiding everything, about my lack of belief - staring at the shadows that were thrown across my wall by students drunk and stumbling home from bars and restaurants and parties. Wondering why I wasn’t throwing my own shadow on another wall with whiskey running through my veins. Was it my own fault for being caught up in the majesty of the school? Had I sabotaged myself in exactly the same way I had at home? Was I really that unlikeable? Rolling onto my back, I laced my fingers over my stomach and closed my eyes, counting the breaths. No, Archie had seemed fond in a long suffering way, like one might be with a very nervous animal. Did I resent that in itself? My room was no longer a sanctuary of peace, but oppressive in its silence. I wondered, for a few moments, what the objects of my (not so sneaky) spying were doing. Squashed that thought in its tracks. They would be drinking and smoking and discussing something or other - God, and the rest of it -, something I would not be able to join in even if I was there. I sat up, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands and ignoring the overtired headache threatening at the edges of my vision, reaching in the darkness for a glass of water and a painkiller. In all my loneliness and self loathing I had never been truly alone, and had never felt it more. I knew then that if I looked in the mirror in the morning I would see a wretch - pale skin, lank hair, red rimmed eyes and a twice-broken nose; and I knew that it would be the truth. I’d always felt that, physically, people were the most honest when they’d just woken up. The girls I’d slept with in college were, certainly, at their most beautiful when the sun was just rising and they were still a little unkempt, still a little dewy with sweat, eyelashes dark against their cheeks as their chests rose and fell with the slow contentment of pleasant dreams. I didn’t dwell on it too long, usually. I was perfectly aware of what a mess I was at almost all times. I think that may have been why I stayed awake so long after that first fateful meeting - they made me feel ashamed. Even when scruffy (and I had seen all of them hungover, Polly with James’ sunglasses on and shivering in Archie’s jumper, James sickly and white-knuckled, both carrying large paper cups of coffee and speaking quietly) they exuded an effortless sort of grace in their movements. Always clean cut, in suits and ties and jumpers and cardigans and dresses with thick tights and little boots, or barelegged and barefooted in oversized shirts and shorts, sleeves rolled up to elbows and hair perfectly coiffed, tan woollen coats, wellingtons damp with puddle water and wine, pale pink blouses with pearl buttons, delicate little chains on ankles and wrists and necks or chunky beaded bracelets, hand knitted scarves and hats pulled down over eyes and mouths, fingerless gloves so that they could roll cigarettes and joints and use their phones in their laps during classes.They traded clothes like sweets, too, James broad shouldered enough to fill Alexander’s vests even though he was boney, Alexander lean enough to fit into Archie’s trousers if he’d forgotten his own even though he was built like a house. They suited their landscape, had adapted to it to camouflage themselves as either prey or hunter, all pastels and darks - and once, regrettably for Archie, a few loud and floral Hawaiian shirts sent from his mother after an extended holiday - while I in my ripped jeans and ratty secondhand jackets looked more like their ward than their friend. They were, at all times, so beautiful and radiant I could barely breathe. 

The first day of classes, for me at least, dawned pale and cold and drizzly, and while I knew I should have slept I was awake to see the sun rise over the turrets and the courtyard. I felt sick. I had smoked all my cigarettes. My headache had gotten worse and worse as the night had wore on and as the light filtered through to my window I pressed my face against the glass to breathe condensation onto it. I felt as though I were heading for the guillotine, could practically feel the cold sting of metal on the back of my neck. Pardon me, sir, I did not mean to do it, I thought to myself as my shoes squeaked on wooden floors and terracotta slabs, and the rain worsened until thunder rumbled overhead. It matched my mood, at least, with the creeping sense of dread and the pounding in my temples. How would I be able to answer questions when it felt as though my brain would come out of my nose at any given moment? I’d tucked a tissue into my sleeve just in case, but paper would be an unlikely barrier between my thoughts and my desk. I rubbed my temples one handed, the other deep in my jacket pocket, bag slung over my shoulder and a book tucked under my arm. Even if I didn’t feel particularly studious I’d look the part, right? Stifling a yawn, I clattered my way up all the stairs to the classroom I would grow to love. 

It was the smell which hit me first, halfway down the corridor with the sunlight filtering through the clouds and making the dust particles dance in spotlights, unmistakable old paper and ink and wood varnish, the bitter tang of gin and the floating sweetness of violets. The air in here, so different to the outside, was warm and a little muggy, and I found myself shrugging out of my layers until I was in just a t-shirt. I balled the jacket up and shoved it under my arm next to the book, feeling one empty sleeve escape and slap against the back of my knee as I inhaled deeply. Exhaled slowly and closed my eyes and knocked gently. This was it. There was no turning back from this, even if I did want to vomit out of the window (and what would I have done if I had? Shouted an apology to some unsuspecting student lazing on the lawn?), and from inside came a slow, rich voice.

“Come in, Mr. Banks.” I swallowed. Curled my fingers around the sun-warmed handle. Pressed the door open and tried to smile against the butterflies beating against my teeth.

“Danny!” Archie’s curls bounced as he leapt to his feet, circling the desk so that he could clasp my hand in both of his. “We were starting to think you’d chickened out of coming at all.” He filled my vision so entirely that I had to blink several times against the golden glare before I realised that there were other people there with us. The group I had already fallen in love with from a distance, so calm and clean in cotton, backlit by the morning sun, each with a steaming paper cup in front of them. No books on the desks, but several bookcases piled to the ceiling with hundreds and hundreds of volumes. Coffee tables and cabinets full of taxidermy animals, paintings, dried flowers in ornate vases and cracked coffee mugs alike. An easel pushed against the floor-to-roof window, with a jar of dirty water and paintbrushes. I let myself breathe into Archie’s welcoming embrace, closing my eyes again. What felt like hours was only a few seconds, and as he pulled away and squeezed both of my forearms I smelled it again - the ink, the gin, the paper - on his mouth. Just what the hell was in those cups, innocent and still in hands and against wood? But I grinned, shaky, looking around at the faces I had yet to grow into.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Good to hear.” Again, that low and lovely voice. Glancing up as I sat in the chair Archie had pulled out for me, I found the source. Lorna Dowland, as the letter had been signed, had a wide smile. As wide as Archie’s but without his disturbingly white teeth, lips full and generous and chapped along the bottom. The crows feet around her eyes deepened as she leaned across the table to shake my hand. “I’m so very pleased to meet you at last, Daniel.” But her skin was cool, a contrast to the warmth of her tone. Goosebumps rose on my arms.

“I’m pleased to be here.” Quiet and polite like I’d been raised, in hindsight I think my handshake must have been one of those awful wet fish affairs, because the group around me tittered as she sat back down and pulled her hair away from her face. 

“I’m going to assume that none of you did the summer reading.” There was another, more half hearted chuckle, and a few of them shook their heads. 

“I tried,” began a dark haired, birdlike boy, “but it was just so dry, Lorna. So I tried it again with a bottle of wine.”

“Keep your alcoholic tendencies to yourselves, please.” She stood again, all long skirt and cardigan, to take a book from the shelf behind her. “It is dry. That’s the point. Not all writing is warm and inviting.”
“Sounds like a metaphor for life.”

“Exactly my point, Imogen.” I had not seen this girl very often, had not seen the long black hair that fell down her back in one swoop, the dark skin and skinny wrists under a charcoal blazer jacket, eyes hidden by a messy fringe and yellow beanie hat pulled over her ears. I wondered how she could be cold in this room of heady heat. “We don’t just study books here, my darlings. We study life itself.”

All in all I don’t suppose I could have asked for a better first class. The attention had not been on me, perhaps because Lorna could sense the restless anxiety which trembled in my fingertips and mouth whenever I asked or answered a question, but no had I been ignored. I was treated with the cool sort of indifference which would suggest they had known me for years, all of them. It was only afterwards, shaking dust and ash from his jacket, that Archie caught my elbow.

“Come and say hello to everyone properly,” low and serious, but with the corner of his generous mouth quirking upwards, “outside in the light where we can see more than your hair and your nose, hmm?” I felt the flush cross my cheeks and ducked my head, his fingers warm through my shirt as I nodded, gathered myself, and looked up at him again. His beam was as dazzling as the early afternoon sun, the strength in his palm something just this side of intimidating as he dragged me to meet his friends for the very first time. Of course we had spoken, in brief terms, in the classroom, but this was something I was wholly unused to. This was social, warm and welcoming as he stood me before all of them and spread his arms wide.

“Are you taking in strays again, Arch?” The boy was taller than me, but not the tallest of them, hair thick and dark and carefully coiffed as he raised his eyebrows slightly, fingertips thin and curled around the filter of a hand-rolled cigarette. 

“Danny, this is James. The one we discussed. See? Doesn’t he look like he wants to punch you in the face?” This earned him a smile, exasperated, and an eye roll. 

“Not really, not now.” I offered him my own, tentative, smile, and he shook his head with a huff. Took my hand and shook it, blinking down at me with impossibly dark eyes and impossibly long eyelashes.

“I’m not one for violence, I promise. What have you been telling people, that I’m some sort of out of control maniac?”

“Only on Fridays.” Archie laughed softly, clapping him on the back. “Right, so that’s James. The rest…” He pointed in turn, “Polly, Imogen, Alexander.” And as I looked around at them, I saw beauty unrivalled by anything I’d ever seen before. Polly and Imogen were polar opposites - one with bright eyes and dimples deep in her cheeks, lips painted red, hair to match tumbling down her shoulders as she waved and bounced on the balls of her tiny feet. Polly wore green, from the beads on her neck to the bottle coloured tights casing her legs, and when she got bored of waving she sprung across the gap to hug me with her arms around my shoulders. My arm clasped around her waist, partly in shock, partly because it had been itching to do so since the moment I saw her. She was just as soft as she’d looked, all curves and folds and woollens, hair smelling of vanilla and coffee and cinnamon and scotch. The other, Imogen, as I said before was darker. Angular. Decidedly more unfriendly, but striking in greys and yellows as she tilted her head in acknowledgement. Polly eventually let me go, but Imogen refused to look away. There was something at once delicately birdlike yet steely, like she was sizing me up to eat me. Perhaps not a bird, but a spider. A spider who had found me in her web and felt me too insignificant to pay any real attention to. While I smiled and held an arm out for another hug from her, she just smirked, her nostrils flaring, thin-plucked eyebrows adding to the curve of her mouth with curves of their own - the only thing suggesting Polly’s softness in her was the hint of collarbone underneath the thin mustard coloured blouse, humanising her, making her fragile and vulnerable in a more visceral way. And then, finally, Alexander. Standing at over a foot taller than Polly, almost six inches taller than me, certainly able to at least rest his chin on the top of Imogen’s head, he was the most imposing. His shoulders were broad and strong under the camel pea coat he wore, nose slightly hooked under a curtain of thick curls which hung to his shoulders and didn’t quite hide the downward turn of his mouth as he looked me over with almost golden eyes. The skin on his hands, long fingered and broad palmed, was of an equal colour when he untangled one from his pocket and held it out to me, heat radiating off of him as he enclosed me in his grip and shook once.

“You mustn't take a word Archie says seriously.” His voice deeper than any I’d ever heard, with a slow soothing musical quality to it that I couldn’t begin to fathom. The downwards turn of his mouth lifted as he bent to look at me, hand still caught around mine. “He’s mad as a hatter, I’m afraid.”

“Hardly,” he drew the ‘a’ out, just to be on the edge of obnoxious, and pulled me to clasp an arm around my shoulders again. I would get used to this - used to the shift of muscle in his chest and back whenever he drew me close. Used to the feel of his hair tickling my neck, the brush of his cheek against my jawbone. “Now see? Not scary at all.” And as I opened my mouth to protest, that I found none of them exactly scary so much as intimidating and breathtaking, Polly flushed and shook her head so hard her little golden glasses slid to the end of her nose.

“Shut it, Arch! We never found you scary, Danny, I promise. Just… You were so mysterious, ducking away from the window whenever we tried to say hello. Lorna said you were joining us when we met her at the end of the summer and encouraged us to be friendly but… You made it so damn hard, you know?” Her voice was thin, rather posh but with a strange edge to it, as though it was all an act - the straight back, the neat laces, the combed hair. As though there was something wild in her begging to be unleashed, and she was so earnest all I wanted to do was to cup her face in my hands and kiss her breathless. Instead what I did was shrug, smiling around at them, my own head shaking with an incredulous sort of air. How could they have found me threatening, the five of them with their bonds as strong as steel and their beauty as blinding as sunlight?

“Now we’ve offended him.” Imogen, in all her slow glory, leaned back against the wall and sighed as James huffed a smokey laugh and put his cigarette out under his heel.

“No,” looking at me through an escaped lock of hair, “if he thought me capable of starting a fight with him, I daresay he was scared of us, too.”

“No!” I repeated, wide eyed, finding my voice at last while Polly giggled and hid her face in Alexander’s arm. “Well, maybe a little bit.”

“We’re scary, but he’ll happily spend an afternoon with Carol.” Archie teased, ruffling my hair and stepping away.

“Can we just agree that none of us are scary to the other, now?” As he rubbed Polly’s back to ease her from her laughing, Alexander smirked. 

“I think that’s something we can all agree on.” Imogen put her cup down, kicking it to the pile of rubbish collecting on the pavement under an overflowing bin. “Can’t we, now, Daniel Banks?”
“Yes.” Eager, too eager to please them all. “Yes, I think so.”

I watched them leave from my window, the point of Alexander’s elbow as he walked draped around Polly, my stomach aching with jealousy, wishing I’d invited myself along. The bounce of James’ hair with his strange sloping walk - as though he were leaning forward at all times, always in a rush, the contrast of his and Imogen’s skin as they swung their hands between them until they blurred and made an entirely new colour. Then Archie, alone, hands in his pockets, bouncing as though he were walking on clouds. All I knew then was that all I had to look forward to in my life here were our classes together, the snippets of time I would be allowed to spend in their company, listening to them and their stories and their thoughts. I watched them until they disappeared down the hill, until they were obscured by the glare of the sun in my eyes, until my breath fogged up the window and I couldn't even see the courtyard any more. It was only then that I noticed the silence in my room, how quiet everything was and how still outside of that hot, close classroom. Then there was the hunger. The low rumble of my stomach now that I had stopped feeling nausea clawing at my insides sounded like distant thunder. Even as I went back down the hallway to the kitchen my thoughts were on them - where they were going, what they were doing, how much they touched each other - as though they had cast a spell over me. I was obsessed. I could feel it in the tingling of my very bones. The memory of Polly’s smile, of the press of her body against mine, of Alexander’s fingers curling around my palm… Oftentimes, I think human connections are a strange and foreign thing. The people around me have relationships and families and plans and I am alone, waiting, reaching out for something greater than myself in the world. I felt then, at Wrexley, that I had found it. As though being around them would brighten and enhance me, as though they could envelope me and swallow me whole. The worst thing was how desperately I wanted them to do it. To take me and shape me and make me something new, something unrecognisable. I wasn’t sure that this was what my mother meant when she asked if I’d been making friends, but surely it wasn’t something she’d be able to complain about. Friends were friends, and although at that point I wasn’t entirely sure if they would count me among theirs, I was so smitten with everything they exuded that I couldn’t find it in me to care.

“Don’t eat my bacon.” Carol had changed her hair. Before it had been long and loosely curled and quite pretty, now she had scraped it back from her face in a tight ponytail which gave her the vague impression of someone who’d had a lot of plastic surgery. I paused, briefly, carton of milk suspended above a bowl of cornflakes, to raise an eyebrow at her and smile a little.

“I haven’t even got a frying pan out.

“You never know.” She leaned against the doorframe, face turned away from me, lip bitten as she stared out of the huge floor-to-ceiling windows which overlooked the outside of the campus. Over trees and fields, thin-plucked eyebrows furrowed in thought as she folded her arms and tapped one foot in her slippers and dressing gown.

“Did you go to classes today?”

“Nah. I didn’t have any.” Her voice had lost that edge, the suggestion of sarcasm, and as I put the cereal away I looked at her properly. There were bags under her eyes, and the end of her nose was reddened, and she seemed three shades lighter than she had when she’d introduced herself to me.

“… Are you alright?” Keeping my voice soft, crunching the spoon down into my bowl and leaning across to put the kettle on. 

“You have classes with James.” She rubbed the back of her hand under her nose and sniffed, still not looking at me.

“Mmm.” Pouring the dregs of my milk down the drain I busied myself with making tea, heart sinking. Whatever she wanted me to tell her, I wouldn’t have the answers. 

“Does he ever mention me?”

“No.” Directed at two mugs, two teabags, clutching a pot of sugar and a spoon. “Do you take sugar?”

“He didn’t even tell you that we were seeing each other? Does he know that you know me?”

“I think he knows, yeah. We didn’t really speak. Sugar?”

“Two, please. Wait here.” She disappeared, leaving me to portion out sugar into the mugs, thinking over what she’d said. What Archie had said. The skittering way in which James smoked and smiled and spoke. I could see it now. Carol, impressionable, first week away from home, James self assured and seductive, leaning against a bar and touching the inside of her wrist, leaning in to whisper in her ear and take her home. If it was easy for me to fall in love with them, I couldn’t imagine how quickly he’d charmed her. When she returned she held up a large, clear bottle and smirked. “A little gin goes a long way.” And I had to laugh, head shaking, putting my tea next to hers and gesturing to it.

“It’d be rude of me to let you drink alone.” Her smile spread as she poured measures into the warm liquid, then soured as she took a gulp. “Alright?”

“You have no idea.” She sat at the table, and I joined her, mug in one hand and the bottle in the other. Between us we finished it, and when the room was spinning and my veins were singing she burst into tears. It was a distant sort of unhappiness, one that came from a personal kind of homesickness - not for a place, but for another soul, one she’d thought to belong to her and only her. As she cried she buried her face in her hands, flushed and damp, hair falling out of the elastic keeping it away from her mouth, lips trembling and eyelashes sticking together. The sun was starting to set over the trees in the distance, and the kitchen smelled of souring milk, and if anyone had walked in then they would have seen a girl in tears, me watching from the other side of a table with my legs folded up against my chest, jumper sleeves pushed up to my elbows, eyebrows furrowed. It wasn’t confusion wrinkling my brow, but rather, concentration as the gin burned a hole in my stomach and made my vision swim.

“" And you know, it’s all that Polly’s fault. She didn’t like me, she never liked me, and she made it obvious.” Through a mouthful of tea, wiping her eyes. “She poisoned him against me.” Honestly, I couldn’t imagine Polly influencing James in any way - he was too bright, and she too delicate - and the hairs on the back of my neck raised in defence against her.

“Actually".”

“And she’s gotten to you too, I know. That girl is trouble.” She hiccupped, forehead resting against her hand, face streaky. “She hates anyone who gets in her way, I’m telling you.” And slowly, slowly, she melted until she could press her face against the table, still snuffling, until her breathing evened out into snores. I sighed softly, letting the air escape bit by bit until I could lean back in my chair. What Carol had said about Polly shook me, even as I grabbed her under the armpits to half stagger with her down the and into her room, even as I helped her out of her dressing gown and tucked her into bed with a basin by her head, there was a sense of uneasy anger bubbling just behind my eyes.

“You’re too nice to be mixed up with them.” Mumbled into her pillow while I sat in her desk chair. “You don’t know what they’re like. They suck the life out of anyone who loves them.”

“Go to sleep.” Leaning across, I smoothed her hair back from her face and pulled the duvet up to her chin. “You’re drunk. Things are always worse when you’re drunk. I’ll leave some paracetamol out for you.”

“Thank you.” With one bright blue eye open to look at me. “Thank you, Danny.”

“Don’t mention it.” As I closed the door behind me, I prayed that she wouldn’t. Especially not to them.

The sound of Carol vomiting carried down the hall and under my door, and honestly, while I felt bad for her I felt worse for myself. I’d collapsed into bed the night before with warmth in my stomach and my head swimming, then woken up with the two situations swapped. Rolling onto my side, I watched the sky darken over the course of an hour. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said about Polly. About all of them. And what if what she’d said was what I wanted? What if I wanted them to drain me of everything I had and more? What if I felt that what I had to offer simply wasn’t worth draining in the first place? The sky was black by the time the first fat drops of rain hit my window, and with an almighty groan I hauled myself out of bed and shook my head free of gin scented cobwebs. Tuesdays were free days for us. Technically I was supposed to spend the day in the library, catching up on the curriculum I’d missed, but at the same time I was fairly sure that moving at all would knock my eyes out of my head and send them rattling across the floorboards. It took me a little while to talk myself into standing, and then the sight of my wardrobe depressed me further. Was this what I had to offer to the university? To the possibility of my new friends? To myself, even? A few pairs of ripped jeans and a handful of ratty t-shirts. None of the elegant sophistication they’d so graciously given me. Sighing, I scrubbed a hand through my hair and yawned. Carol had stopped throwing up. That was nice for her. The problem was, what with where we were, there were no shops. A twenty minute drive from Keswick, of course, but beyond that? All Keswick had were a collection of farm-style shops and a few super markets - in fact I knew that most of my peers ordered their shopping online then drove into Carlisle for clothes and other luxuries. I needed to become friends with people who drove. As it was I pulled on a fresh pair of jogging bottoms and a jumper falling apart of the elbows, then braved the drizzle without an umbrella. What did I care about getting wet? I was dying a gin induced death anyway. What did the sky water matter to me, when I had no clothes and no friends and no purpose? All that mattered was that I got some caffeine into my system, and fast. The cafe was warm and dry; I could see myself in the reflection of the milk jug, pale and hair hanging in my eyes, a ghost of a chance of someone who might have been something once upon a time. Just like before, with Archie, I took my coffee black with two sugars and downed half of it before the thought of a real breakfast even crossed my mind. And those almond croissants did look awfully tempting, even if mine did cover myself and the desk in powdered sugar as soon as I took it out of the bag. Coughing a little, I vaguely regretted having tucked it inside my jumper on the brief journey from cafe to library, and brushed the crumbs off of my chest and onto the floor in a furtive sort of manner, hoping no one had seen. I felt bad, ruining the sanctity of the library with pastry, but it couldn’t be helped. I left the scattering of food there and ditched the last of my breakfast in a waste paper basket on my way to the stairwell.

The library itself was in one of the towers in each corner of the campus, and the tower went up seven floors in a spiralled staircase, all lined with bookcases with enormous stained glass windows depicting literary scenes. First floor, Alice in Wonderland; the caterpillar blowing smoke rings around a little girl in petticoats, up and up and up to what would become my favourite. A huge mural to Oscar Wilde. Children sitting in a tree in a blossoming garden, eating fruit and kicking their legs. I stood before it, that morning, one hand in my pocket and the other clasping my coffee, just taking in the hazy light through the coloured glass. It made me a little sad. A little nostalgic for times past. I thought of my mother alone, I thought of myself alone, I thought of Carol alone. And I felt bad. Guilty. Bitter, like the burn in my throat and on my tongue. And in the distance through the misted boiled-sweet glass I could see my own window, below that, the courtyard. Beyond, once I’d reached that topmost floor, I could just see the far shore of the vast lake outside the campus. I wanted nothing more than to take my sore, sad body out into that freezing water and wash everything away. Nothing more than to put myself in the mercy of the darkened depths. But that wasn’t an option. It had taken seven floors and a good few minutes of staring into space for me to realise quite where I was, and turning, I threw the empty cup into the bin and shouldered open a heavy oak door. I didn’t know what section was on that remote top floor, and frankly, I’d stopped caring as soon as I’d entered, because there she was. Sudden, like the sun erupting through the clouds and lighting the room from behind me in blues and yellows and greens. Her back was to me, her hair glinting auburn through the spattering rainbow colours. I’d known her for a day, but I’d know her anywhere. The awful thing was, although she hadn’t seen me, I now needed to think of a charming way to greet her. Anyone who’s been hungover and subsequently faced with the girl of their dreams will sympathise with how difficult, how impossible that task would be. And I still had the buzz of Carol’s voice in my head, telling me that Polly was manipulative, that she’d ruin me. In all honesty, the thought was alluring. Exciting. Seductive. So I cleared my throat and brushed my jumper down and went to stand next to her.

“A lesser man would accuse you of stalking.” She didn’t bat an eyelid, didn’t look up from where she was thumbing through a book, but smiled.

“I was here first, Danny Banks. Looks to me like you’re the stalker.” I laughed a little, nodding.

“It would do, I suppose.” She smelled like lavender, fresh washing, something dangerous and citrusy under the powder of her skin. Looking down at her I watched the pale blue line of the vein in her neck disappear into the open collar of her blouse, then further, the blue fringe of lace on her bra.

“You don’t really need to catch up, you know,” I gulped, bringing my eyes back to somewhere respectable, but she hadn’t caught me. She hadn’t even looked up until her gaze caught mine, her fingers pale on the leather of the book as she closed it, “none of us really know what’s going on at the best of times, I’ll be honest. We’re only there because it gives us the space to read, and to think.” I could have kissed her then, with her clutching that damned book and me clutching her face and turning it up into mine, but I didn’t. I could have clasped her cheeks between my hands and pressed my mouth to hers and stolen her breath and probably earned a slap for my efforts. It would have been worth it, but I didn’t. I just stood there and put my hands in my pockets, looking at her ablaze in Autumn and feeling my heartbeat in my throat.

“Are the others with you?” Hushed, I felt like I was looming over her a little, fingers itching to touch her, just once. Polly shook her head, still smiling, eyes darting to the window as she fiddled with the cracked black leather strap of her satchel.

“No. Alexander’s coming to pick me up soon, though. So I won’t be stuck out in the rain.”

“Where do you live, anyway? Archie gave me the impression that my living on campus was a bad thing.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” She held the door open for me, falling into step beside me as we walked back down the stairs, all notion of studying forgotten. “It’s just… so inconvenient. Curfews, rules on guests… Like you’re still at home, not out on your own. Do you see what I mean? Thank you,” she handed the book - an old battered copy of The Last Unicorn - to the clerk behind the check out desk and shrugged.

“I think so.” I didn’t, not at all, but then I hadn’t realised that there were quite that many restrictions. I thought about Carol, about what Archie had said, imagined her reaction of I had Polly stay over. 

“I live just across the lake, anyway. Outside Keswick, but close enough to be able to get milk every day.” With a musical little laugh that suggested she was teasing me. 

“And the others?”
“Oh, Alexander lives with me. James and Archie live out in Carlisle, which suits us fine if we want to go somewhere a bit more populated. Imogen is in the other direction, just down the hill, in the forest. She’s close enough to cycle in.” 

“Alexander drives, then.” As I put it all together in my mind, arms folded. “What about James and Archie?”

“Arch has his Harley, James either stays with us,” was she blushing? Was I jealous? “or rides on the back. He’s still saving for a car.” And I could see the sort of car he wanted - a neat little Chevrolet or a sleek black Bentley, hair slicked back, sunglasses on, one arm freckling as he hung it out of the window. I nodded dumbly, taking the books up from the counter as they were returned, following her out into the rain-clean afternoon air. Polly sighed. I felt her chest expand and deflate as she tucked a tiny, warm hand into the crook of my elbow. My heart soared, my stomach leapt, , and in that moment I loved her more than I’d ever loved anything in the world.

“Where is he meeting you?”

“Just outside the gates.”

“Do you want me to walk with you?” I wanted to walk with her. I wanted to slot my fingers between her and walk with her for miles. She just smiled up at me, squeezed my arm, and watched as the eye contact she offered dazzled me. 

“Only if you’d really like to.” So I smiled back at her, lifting my arm to rest it around her shoulders and hoping against hope that it wouldn’t make her uncomfortable. But she sighed, settling against me like I was one of the others. Like I was James or Archie. I could have choked on the blood flooding into my face.

“You really are very sweet, Daniel.” As I held the gate open for her, my hand drifting to the small of her back to usher her through. “Far to sweet for the likes of us.” Once again Carol’s voice echoed in my head. I hated her. The girl standing next to me simply didn’t have it in her to manipulate anyone. It wasn’t possible.

“Nah.” Still blushing as a Land Rover pulled into the lay-by in front of us, Alexander’s hair blocking part of the window, and she took the books from me as she pulled me down to kiss my cheek. 

“I hope I’ll see you soon?” I just nodded as she walked away with a jaunty wave, passing the books to Alexander and opening the door. “Oh!” Like a deer she darted back, the slam of the door echoing around us, pulling an eyeliner pencil from behind her ear and taking my wrist to scrawl a number across it. “Call us. Tonight. Don’t be a stranger.”

I had her phone number. I had the burn of her fingers on my bones. I waited until I’d waved her off and they’d disappeared into the treelike to punch the air repeatedly, victorious.

Call us. That was what she’s said with a smile and the print of her lips on my cheek. Us. Like I was already one of them. Like I had a right to be in their company. Like I was included in a strange version of ‘us’ and ‘them’, as opposed to ‘me’ and ‘them’ as it had been in school. Unfortunately by the time I felt it was late enough to phone - several hours later, the sky dark outside my window - I’d talked myself out of doing it entirely. My nerves consumed me and, even though I held the phone in my hand, the numbers on my wrist smudged but readable, I couldn’t bring myself to dial. She’d just been being nice, that was all. I’d intruded on her study time in the library and forced my company on her. How stupid and selfish could I be? Sighing, I flopped onto the bed and closed my eyes. With the lights still on my eyelids burst into fireworks and stars, and I didn’t allow myself to sleep. Not immediately. First I had to replace the phone and copy the number down and daydream about what it would be like if she’d genuinely liked me. What her mouth would feel like against my own. What the delicate inside of her elbow would taste like if she allowed me to kiss her there - I didn’t let my mind go much further than this, as tempting as it was. She was, as far as I was concerned, an innocent. Too pure for my dirty mind and grubby palms. So I just tucked her number away in a drawer and tried to do the same with the fantasies of her thighs in the dark.

“Didn’t fancy a chat last night, then?” James grinned as he tipped his glasses down his nose, one eyebrow cocked like an expectant puppy. I felt my face darken with blood, half tempted to bolt back to my room and hide for the rest of the day, but stood my ground. Took a few steps towards him, even, shouldering my bag as I glanced at Polly and shrugged.

“Sorry,” then, although I’d not wanted it talked about, “Carol got drunk. She was really sick. So I was looking after her.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, just an event out of time. Polly’s face didn’t change, save for a flicker of her eyelids, and I found myself questioning again what my dorm mate had said about her. Did this sweet girl really have any sort of power?

“Aren’t you a hero.” Imogen’s voice was low and dry as she appeared beside me, sunglasses balanced on her head and two steaming cups in her hands. “Archie said you like it black.”

“I do.” Stuttered as she looked up at me, the beginnings of a smirk on the balmy lips.

“She’s talking about the coffee, Casanova.” The brashness of Archie’s accent made me wince, as the authored laughed. I didn’t even mind that it was at my expense, and I took the coffee and thanked her with a chuckle of my own, hanging back just a little to watch Polly and James link arms as we climbed the stairs. It didn’t even register that one of us was missing until we reached the classroom.

“Where’s Alexander?”

“He’s sick.” As James pulled Polly’s chair out for her, not quite meeting my eye, thin fingers lingering on the pale pink wool on the wrist of her cardigan. “Awful head cold. Sounds like a bear, doesn’t he, Pol?”

“Mm, poor love. I’ll make him some soup tonight.”

“But how did you get here, then?”

“Taxi.” Again, as he sat opposite me, finally looking up into my face with a hint of a challenge in his tone. There was something they weren’t saying, something they were afraid to reveal to myself and the others, and I sat back in my chair with a nod and a smile. You are safe here, with me, I wanted to say. Wanted to reach over and touch the inside of Polly’s arm like James was already doing. Whatever it was that unnerved them would not be soothed by my reassurance, no matter how badly I wanted that.

“Make sure he gets plenty of fluids.” Taking a place beside me, Imogen rooted through her bag briefly. “Open a window, would you, Arch?” As she stole she put one of those long, elegant cigarettes between her lips and struck a match, window creaking as Archie swung it open and brought over an ashy teacup.

“Share.” He settled on the other side of me, but leaned his entire body over my lap like a reclining house cat to grab at the filter end of the cigarette, Imogen huffing out a laugh.

“You have your own, Fleming. I suggest you smoke those before you go begging. I will, however, gladly share with the fresh meat.”

“Favouritism.” Archie gasped, clasping his hands over his chest while he watched me pluck a cigarette of my own from the pack with a quiet thank you. James reached over the table to light it with a shining silver Zippo and that’s when I saw it. The darkening bruise almost hidden by the tattoos snaking up his forearm. From this angle it looked like a handprint, and it made me wonder if there was a matching one on the other arm. And who’d done it to him in the first place? All the insistence that he was not a violent individual was starting to look like a cover up for just that - an extremely aggressive man. I could see him covered in blood outside a bar, shouting obscenities at passers by, swinging punches that wouldn’t land. The look he’d thrown at me when I’d questioned him suggested the same - that there was something darker and more infinitely terrifying at work behind his cool academic exterior. What it was, I couldn’t begin to know. But I inhaled the smoke all the same, felt it settle in my lungs and burn my throat and thought myself a dragon while I exhaled slow and hot. The lecture passed in a warm haze of this same smoke, Lorna lighting her own and speaking from the windows with her legs drawn up to her chest and a book open before her, ending quietly with all of us drifting down the stairs like dandelion seeds or the last winter snowflakes. I felt half asleep despite the coffee in my system, the chain-smoking hitting me harder than expected and making my head swim as I walked with my fingertips brushing over the naked brickwork of the stairwell. No one paid me any mind, with Archie striding ahead and the rest of us following, Polly and James arm in arm, his head bent towards her as he stroked his thumbs over the back of her hand, Imogen with her hands in her pockets beside me. To this day I am unsure I ever saw her without a cigarette.

“Daniel, would you like to come for dinner?” Over her shoulder, Polly smiled at me, still tucked into James’ side. 

“I thought Alexander was sick?” I could have kicked myself for the look on her face, for the way it fell into smashed china and broken glass. “I just don’t want to catch it.”

“It’s not contagious.” James slowed, pulling Polly with him until they fell into step besides me, taking the cigarette from Imogen’s mouth and taking a drag before passing it onto the girl holding his arm. “I wouldn’t worry too much. Besides, we were planning to get dinner in Carlisle.”

“How’re we getting there?”

“Taxi.” Imogen laughed slowly, taking her cigarette back, smoke drifting above her head in value dancing formations. Looking back, I can see so clearly all of us. How happy we were in that fragile moment of newfound friendship, how unaware we were of the trials to come.