Page 76 of Spearcrest Knight

“Evan Knight doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would take nicely to rejection, that's all,” Audrey points out thoughtfully.

“Rejection?” I stare at her incredulously. “It’s not exactly a rejection, is it, though?”

“You two kissed and then he went down on you and then you apologised to him and said you liked somebody else. What would you call that if not a rejection?”

“Um, good manners? I thought I handled it in the most polite way possible.”

The girls all shake their heads. Audrey stands and stretches. “I don’t know how you can be both so smart and so clueless sometimes, Sophe.”

“Yeah, you genuinely concern me,” Araminta says, patting my head. “You’re like a little pretty alien who studied everything about being human but never really got the hang of it.”

“I really love how good you guys are making me feel,” I mutter, packing my books away into my backpack.

“But do you actually feel better though?” Araminta asks, wrapping her arm around my waist and kissing my cheek.

I squeeze her in a hug. “You know I do.”

“Right, well, let’s go back to the dorm,” Audrey says bracingly. “We’ll do our best to help you avoid Evan, and hopefully you’ll never have to see him or speak to him again for the rest of your time here and at the end of the school year you can sail off into the sunset to Harvard and never have to think about him going down on you.”

The girls’ laughter drowns out my thoughts, and even though it’s pretty clear they don’t believe my plan of avoiding Evan will work, I leave the study hall in a much better mood than when I entered it.

After that, we head out to grab some food together, and the girls regale me with stories of their outrageous family Christmases and exotic winter holidays. Later, we all end up cuddling up on the couch in the common room to watch a film.

I don’t think about Evan again until I get in bed that night, and that’s when I remember that tomorrow is Monday, and the first day of the half-term, and I’m on register duty for the assembly. I squeeze my eyes shut, and do my best to not think about it.

And even though I fall asleep pretty quickly, my night ends up full of strange and disturbing nightmares featuring Evan bending me over to spank me with my own clipboard.

23

Coward

Sophie

Thefirstdayofthe winter term begins under a bleak, dry sort of snowfall. Brittle flakes flutter from a slate-grey sky. As usual, I’ve been hoisted with the duty of taking down the names of latecomers to the headmaster’s assembly. I stand in the archway of the assembly hall entrance, pressing myself deeper into the shadows, hoping the red bricks of the building swallow me into them.

Becoming forever trapped in the brickwork of Spearcrest would still be a better fate than whatever awaits me when I next meet Evan.

Hoping and praying he is already in the assembly hall is a complete waste of my energy, but I do so anyway. The truth is that ever since I woke up this morning I’ve not stopped thinking about him, no matter how hard I’ve tried. All my self-control and discipline snapped, allowing my mind to replay the scene of us tipsy and making out in his living room in a maddening loop.

In the trophy hall of my greatest mistakes, this is by far my biggest, shiniest trophy.

What a catastrophic error—what a devastating lapse in judgement. And it’s not even like I can place the majority of the blame on Evan, because for once, he chose to stand by what he did.

Of all the times Evan would decide to grow a spine and a moral compass and take ownership of his actions, why did he have to choose this particular time? I offered him an easy way out on a silver platter—all he had to do was to take it.

“I kissedyoubecause I fucking wanted to kissyou.”

His words burn in my mind like he’s branded them there with a red-hot iron. What a thing to say.

What a thing to say to somebody whose friendship you threw away like a dirty towel, somebody you’ve treated like absolutely human garbage for several years. How can you be okay with treating someone like shit and then bold-facedly telling them you want to go on a date with them, or that you want to kiss them? Why torture me all these years if his plan was to get me drunk on his living room floor and make me come with his mouth? What exactly did he expect me to think and feel?

Idon’t even know what I think or how I feel. I told him I liked somebody else because it was the quickest way out I could think of and because it sort of felt like the truth at the time.

It still does. It’s not a lie that I like Freddy. Idolike Freddy. He’s the opposite of everything I hate about Spearcrest kids—about Evan. And he’s smart and kind.

He makes me feelsafe.

Evan doesn’t make me feel safe, at all. The opposite. He makes me feel like I’m seconds away from entering into combat to the death. Around him, I’m so on edge my heart beats faster, my breath comes quicker, my skin becomes alive with pinpricks of awareness. Evan definitely didn’t feel safe when he pulled me against him like he was afraid he would die if he let go.

---