Page 119 of Gifted & Talented

Oh well. What was life if not the constant threat of emotional stampede? Gillian sighed and raised a hand to the doorframe of the Wren house, resting her palm on the wood with a sense of bittersweet sorrow. She would miss Thayer, in a way. The worst bit about people was the goodness they always had if you could bring yourself to look for it. Which was, indeed, a substantial if. And Thayer hadn’t even loved each of his children the same way, so who could say whether he had been someone completely different for Gillian than he was for any of them.

She walked into the bedroom she shared with Arthur, the one where he’d once lain on the bed and stroked my teenage arm and thought he’d grow up to be someone for whom love would eventually be easy; for whom love was waiting, just another finish line to cross. He jumped, startled, at Gillian’s entry, and she caught the reflection of his sheepish glance in the mirror.

“Sorry, I was just—” In one of Arthur’s hands was his phone, which he did have a maddening tendency to obsess over, despite Gillian’s sage advice to stop that, for the good of mankind. In the other hand, Arthur had hastily closed his fingers around something crinkly. “Misbehaving.”

He looked so guilty that Gillian nearly giggled, forgetting briefly about the heaviness of her personal doom.

“What is that?” Gillian sidled up next to him, looking at the foil-wrapped item in his hand.

“Chocolate,” said Arthur.

She recognized instantly that it was the same thing Yves had once handed her. “Ohhh, I see, it’schocolate,” said Gillian knowingly. “Well, if anyone deserves it, it’s probably you.”

Arthur gave her a grateful look. “You’re sure you’re not going to think of me as some sort of hooligan if I partake?”

Is that what you think? Gillian wanted to ask. That I would ever be capable of thinking the worst of you? Of thinking that you are anything but the object of all my dreaming, the soft landing for my tired heart?

“Yves gave me some the other day,” Gillian admitted, her cheeks slightly flushed. “And I’m not… I’m not actually such a stick in the mud, you know.”

“You’re not a stick in the mud.” Arthur moved to break off a piece, looking blithely untroubled, and Gillian realized he wasn’t going to say anythingelse. He was going to leave her there, suspended in limbo, unless she jumped first.

“Please don’t leave me,” Gillian blurted out, and Arthur froze.

“What?”

“I love you. Please don’t leave. I’ll change if you want me to.” She didn’t know how to put it into different words, to make them more feminist or less groveling. “I’ll learn,” she said solemnly. “I promise, I’ll learn.”

Arthur turned slowly to face her, the chocolate still in one hand, momentarily forgotten.

“I have to tell you about someone,” he said. “A girl.”

“Forgiven,” said Gillian instantly. “I don’t care.”

“No, you don’t—” Arthur broke off with a thin smile. “Her name is Riot. Riot Wren.”

Gillian looked at him for a long time.

“Alliterative,” she finally said.

“I know.” He opened his mouth, then stopped. Then opened it again, then stopped. Then he broke off a piece of chocolate and made to pop it in his mouth, though he paused to offer it to her instead. “Want some? Might make this easier.”

“Are you leaving me?” asked Gillian, pained.

“No,” said Arthur. “Are you leaving me?”

“What? Of course not,” said Gillian. “I love you.”

“And I love you,” Arthur replied.

“No,” said Gillian meaningfully. “Iloveyou.”

Arthur looked back at her.

“And I,” he said in a voice that had newly discovered gravity, “loveyou.”

They looked at each other for a very long time. So long it became unclear to them what to do next. Arthur was accustomed to things progressing sexually after such a charged confession. Gillian was unaccustomed to any of this, full stop. She looked down at his hand, meaning to seize it passionately in hers, but stopped when she remembered the chocolate.

“My god, Arthur,” she said. “That’s massive.”

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