Forbidden French

Iwant this day to end. Having to endure my grandmother being here on campus was like having to entertain the Queen of England all afternoon. She came early and stayed late, peppered me with a thousand questions. Who are my friends, and which classes do I prefer, and don’t drink tea in great gulps, and for god’s sake, stop slouching.

When her Rolls-Royce pulled off down the Cyprus-lined drive, I wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate, but when I returned to my dorm, I found a sign pasted to the door.

GO AWAY.

Blythe does this every now and then, essentially kicking me out of my own dorm. Usually it’s only for a few hours, though once it was for an entire weekend. I slept underneath a table in the library and had a backache for a whole week after.

When I saw her note earlier, I stood outside my door for a minute, letting the inconvenience of it all sink in. I needed inside my dorm. At the very least, I wanted to change out of my ridiculous dress. My grandmother sent it to me last week with clear instructions to wear it for the luncheon today. I felt like a five-year-old on her birthday, so pink and frilly. Worse, the fabric was itchy as hell.

I sighed and let my forehead hit the door.

“READ THE SIGN!” Blythe yelled.

I pinched my eyes closed and tried to keep myself from screaming back at her. There’s no use. I’ve gone down that route. I’ve told a teacher, told an administrator, told the headmaster. It always winds up making my life worse in the end. Why can’t adults understand that? I don’t want them to bring Blythe into their office for a stern talking to—I want them to kick her out of St. John’s altogether.

It wouldn’t matter though. A new, worse version of her would crop up in her place. Oh god, the horror of that almost makes me shiver out of my skin. If I were Catholic, I’d do the sign of the cross at the thought.

As I walked away from my dorm, I did so while wishing she’d contract some incurable, horribly disfiguring STD. Is that too much to ask of karma?

With nowhere left to go, I headed to the library because I didn’t feel like getting my head chewed off if I interrupted Blythe and her partner again. Silly me, I ended up getting my head chewed off anyway.

I didn’t even notice Emmett was in there when I first arrived. I was going back to the spot where I like to study, where the books are so dusty and forgotten that I’m more likely to run into the Ghost of Authors Past than another living person.

I was still recovering from the shock of seeing him there, one aisle over, sitting on the floor with his back to the stacks and a whiskey bottle dangling between his bent knees, when he shouted at me.

“What the fuck do you want?”

I leapt a mile in the air.

I should have kept running until I was out of the library, but I only made it three aisles down before I panicked and took solace within the stacks.

Even now, my heart is still lodged halfway up my throat. Tremors run through my hands and fingers.

I’ve been dropped into a horror movie.

“I know you’re in here,” he says, his voice eerily devoid of emotion.

I stay perfectly still, waiting for him to make the first move.

Time slows to a crawl. I’m kicking myself for not finding a better hiding place.

For a few long seconds, my heartbeat thunders so loud it’s all I hear. My chin trembles. Then, I focus in on him: the heavy clink of his whiskey bottle as he sets it down on the parquet floor, the rustling of clothes as he stands, the ominous tap tap tap of his soles as he slowly starts to hunt me.

“Montre-toi…montre-toi…où que tu sois.”

I don’t understand his French, but I recognize the sing-songy cadence of his taunt.

Come out, come out wherever you are.

Though I wish I could stay frozen, I have no choice but to gather courage, turn around, and peer between the books so I can see what he’s doing. I watch as he comes to the end of his aisle and looks both ways before turning right, away from me.

I clench my jaw, sick of the trembling.

“There’s no reason to be scared,” he tells me, his words smooth as butter.

So then why do I feel on the brink of tears?

“Do you think I’m some kind of monster?”

He keeps walking away, in no hurry at all. He gets to the end of an aisle, leans over to peer down it, and then, upon finding nothing, continues on. His search is lazy; he knows there aren’t many places I could have gone.

I’m a sitting duck if I stay where I am. He’ll turn back, come this way, and find me.

Ignoring my racing heart, I start to take a step when he takes a step, using the sound of his walking to disguise my own. My goal is to make it to the rear exit of the library, the one that leads to a dark, safe corridor.

I’m almost past the first hurdle, slinking to the end of my aisle when he suddenly pauses and turns back, no longer walking away from me.

I freeze.

“You know maybe I’m the one who should be scared, alone in a library with Lainey Davenport. If the rumors are to be believed, I might not make it out of here alive.”

Embarrassment washes over me, but not for long. Anger follows, so much pent up from the shitty day I’ve had. First my grandmother, then Blythe, now him.

“You know you don’t help yourself when you do things like this, lurking in the shadows, acting as if you’re mute.”

“I’m not,” I snap impulsively.

His head whips in my direction, his gaze meets mine through the bookshelves, and his mouth curls into a fiendish smile.

“Ah…there you are. Petit de la souris.”

I watch him warily as he approaches, wondering what his plan is, worried he’ll suddenly realize our respective roles: lion and lamb.

My hands ball into fists as he walks to the aisle just before mine and turns in, stopping once he’s right in front of me. I feel my heart pound down in my stomach as the books that separate us get tugged away one by one, tossed carelessly to the ground, until his suit-clad chest is fully visible through the gap.

Then, slowly…he bends down so we’re eye to eye.

For a brief moment, we merely look at each other across the top of the empty shelf.

I’ve never seen him this close before. He’s cast in shadow, but he might as well be cast in bronze, a beautiful boy with sharp cheeks and hard angles and mean eyes. His is the body the devil would take if he wanted to walk the earth.

I wonder what he would say if he knew I keep a photo of him underneath my pillow, a page I ripped from the St. John’s yearbook. He’s grown up even more since that portrait was taken, taller by the day.

He tips his head, studying me.

“So you do have a voice.”

I narrow my eyes, but my annoyance only amuses him.

“Why are you here?” he asks, gentler now.

“It’s not because of you if that’s what you’re thinking.”

His dimples pop. He thinks I’m lying.

“Do you regularly sneak around in the library?”

I regularly sneak around everywhere. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately.

Death will do that to a person.

“What are you scared of?” I ask myself sometimes.

I don’t know how to answer. It feels silly to admit that I’m scared to close my eyes, that the night my mom passed away, I was woken up from a deep sleep, my grandmother’s maid standing at my door, her hand covering her mouth.

I can still hear her racking sobs.

“Lainey, you poor thing. You poor soul. I can’t bear it.”

When I went to sleep, my mom was alive. When I woke up, she was gone.

Logically, I know sleep will not steal the living from me. I’ve slept many nights and woken up to find my grandmother still alive and well. I know I’m not cursed like that. Only, at night, when it’s dark and quiet and I’m alone with my thoughts, I can sometimes convince myself otherwise.

The first time I left my dorm for a midnight stroll, it was on a night when insomnia had a firm grip on me. I was tossing and turning and knew I was annoying Blythe. Her groans of agitation told me I had better lie still and soon. Instead, I got up, slid on a pair of flip-flops, and left my dorm. The faculty here are lenient when it comes to curfews. This is a posh boarding school with enough privileged students (AKA Daddy and Mommy are wrapped around their little fingers) that the faculty has learned they have to pick and choose their battles. Nothing illegal, but beyond that, use your judgment, and quite frankly, even the illegal things get overlooked most of the time. The amount of drug use at St. John’s could rival Studio 54 in its heyday. Still, most of the time, the faculty is more than happy to ignore the stench of weed or a little bit of white powder if those tuition checks keep rolling in and those hefty endowments keep clearing.

Walking out of the building, I had no goal in mind. I just knew I wanted to be outside, so I used the moonlight to guide me. First, I went to the rose garden, gently feeling my way around the bushes, smelling my favorite varieties, the ones I come back to time and time again. Then, I proceeded to the woods surrounding the manicured lawn, and finally down to the pine-rimmed lake where the rowing team practices.

That’s where I found Emmett.

He was sitting on the dock that leads out into the dark water, feet dangling down, lit by the full moon.

His presence startled me the same way it did tonight in the library. He wasn’t supposed to be there; it felt like he was invading my dreams. A person should be able to wander alone at midnight without fear of stumbling upon someone, but there he was, awake like me.

While I was still absorbing the shock of seeing him, he stood, dove off the end of the dock, and started to swim. I waited for him to pause and catch his breath, to bob aimlessly or simply float on his back, cast in moonlight. Instead, he kept going. His strokes were precise and practiced, one after another after another. The rhythm was perfect. He was obviously a competent swimmer, but the lake was big, and I had no idea what he was planning.

Worried, I took deep breaths as if trying to gift him my air as he shrank down to nothing, disappearing in the distance. I could barely see the other side of the lake; surely he wasn’t planning to cross it. It seemed like a nearly impossible feat, like those psychos who swim the English Channel. Sure, it can be done, but at what cost?

I looked behind me, searching for help though I knew I would find none. It just seemed like I needed some kind of plan for what I’d do if he didn’t reappear soon. He was out there all by himself, or at least he assumed he was. I could hear my grandmother’s admonishing voice in my head. How incredibly foolish of him.

My brain conceived of all possible outcomes. If he went out there to drown, I would be the last person to see him alive, thus I’d be the first person on their suspect list. I’d be hauled off to the police station for questioning.

The stress was starting to eat away at me. I could really imagine myself getting taken away in handcuffs, not to mention the very real horrifying fate if I’d just witnessed a person dive to their death.

Just when I was sure it was time to alert someone, consequences be damned, he heaved himself back up onto the dock and splayed out, gulping in huge breaths, his wide chest rising and falling. I imagined how hard his heart was pounding in his chest, a kick drum against his ribs.

He looked spent.

I didn’t realize it then. Only after weeks of watching his midnight swims have I come to understand that moment is precisely why he does it. The feeling he gets at the end of his swim, that utter exhaustion is his goal. He lies there on the wooden dock, his face toward the sky, and he seems for once at peace, calmed by exertion. It’s the same thing I strive for during my late-night walks. I like to think we’re the same that way. Twin souls. The midnight wanderers.