If We Were Villains: A Novel

The following morning, James dragged me out of bed a little after seven to go for a run. The bruises on his arms had faded to a rotten green, but he wore a sweatshirt with the sleeves pulled down to his wrists. It was cold enough by then that it didn’t look peculiar.

We often ran the narrow trails that wound through the woods on the south side of the lake. The air was cool and sharp, the morning overcast, our breath coming out in long plumes of white. We kept a good pace together for a two-mile loop, talking in short stilted bursts.

“Where’d you go last night?” he asked. “I couldn’t find you after final curtain.”

“Didn’t want to deal with Richard in close quarters so I waited in the lobby.”

“Did Meredith ambush you?”

I frowned at him. “How did you know?”

“I thought she might.”

“Why?”

“Just the way she’s been looking at you lately.”

I stumbled over a root and fell a little bit behind him, then doubled my speed to catch up.

Me: “How has she been looking at me?”

James: “Like she’s a shark and you’re an oblivious fur seal.”

Me: “Why is that the word everyone’s using to describe me lately?”

James: “Who else called you a fur seal?”

Me: “Not that. Never mind.”

I watched the ground for a moment, thinking. The dull ache in my left side intensified whenever I inhaled. The air smelled of earth and evergreen and approaching winter.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened?” James asked.

“What?”

“With Meredith.” He said it lightly, teasing, but there was apprehension there, too. Guilt made my face warmer than exertion already had.

“Nothing happened,” I said.

“Nothing?”

“Not really. I told her I wasn’t interested in becoming Richard’s next punching bag and she left.”

“Is that the only reason?” I could tell from his tone that he wasn’t convinced.

“I mean, I don’t know.” I’d lain awake most of the night repeating the scene in my head, agonizing over those last few words, thinking up a thousand things I should have said instead, wishing it had gone a different way. I couldn’t pretend I was immune to Meredith; I’d always admired her, but from what I thought was a safe distance. By coming closer she’d confused me. I didn’t believe she really wanted me, just that I was the easiest mark. But I couldn’t admit that to James—because I was embarrassed, and because I was afraid I was wrong.

He watched me, waiting for me to elaborate.

“It’s like Alexander said the other day,” I told him. “I couldn’t decide if I wanted to kiss her or kill her.” We jogged on in an awkward silence softened by the twittering of whatever dim-witted birds hadn’t yet flown south for the winter. We passed the trail leading back to the Castle and started up the steep hill toward the Hall. When we were halfway up I asked, “What do you think?”

“About Meredith?”

“Yeah.”

“You know how I feel about Meredith,” he said, with a note of finality that discouraged further questions. But it wasn’t really an answer—there was something unsaid, something trapped behind his teeth. I wanted to know what he was thinking but didn’t know how to ask, so we climbed the rest of the way up the hill without speaking.

My calves were burning by the time we landed on the wide lawn behind the Hall, doubled over, breathing hard. As our bodies cooled, the November chill crept in. My shirt was stuck to my back, beads of sweat sliding out of my hair and down my temples. James’s face and throat glistened feverish red, but the rest of his skin was pale from sleeplessness, and the contrast made him look distinctly unwell.

“Water?” I said. “You don’t look good.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

We trudged across the wet grass to the refectory. At eight a.m. on a Saturday, it was mostly empty. A few teachers and early risers sat reading quietly, mugs of coffee and breakfast plates in front of them. At one table, a cluster of dancers clad in black spandex stretched their long legs. At another, a choral music student sat inhaling steam from a cereal bowl filled with hot water, perhaps hoping to counteract the effects of what looked like a murderous hangover on her vocal chords. A small mixed group had accumulated at the far wall where the mailboxes were.

“What do you suppose that’s about?” I asked.

James grimaced. “I have a fairly good idea.”

I followed him over, and the little crowd parted easily to let us through—maybe because we were flushed and sweaty, but maybe not.

In the middle of the wall was a long corkboard reserved for general campus announcements. Usually it was thatched with club flyers and tutoring advertisements, but that day everything else was hidden behind an enormous campaign poster of Richard. He glared out at the viewer in monochrome red, his handsome features sharpened by deep black shadows. Below the immaculate knot of his tie but above the smaller text detailing the production information white block letters proclaimed,

ALWAYS I AM CAESAR

James and I stood staring at it for long enough that most of the other people who had come to investigate lost interest and wandered away.

“Well,” he said, “that’s bound to get people’s attention.”

I was still staring, annoyed that James wasn’t more annoyed. “Fuck this,” I said. “I don’t want him watching me like Big Brother from every wall for the next two weeks.”

“He doth bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus,” James remarked, “and we petty men / Walk under his huge legs and peep about / To find ourselves dishonorable graves.”

“Fuck that also.”

“You’re starting to sound like Alexander.”

“Sorry, but after last night I think the odds of Richard ripping my head off went up like a hundred percent.”

“Keep that in mind next time Meredith throws herself at you.”

“It wasn’t quite like that,” I said, and immediately wished I hadn’t spoken.

“Be careful, Oliver,” he said, knowingly, as if he could read my mind. “You’re much too trusting. She did this to me, too, first year. We were partners for voice class—that weird humming thing. Remember?”

“Wait, she did what?”

“Decided she wanted me and assumed I wanted her, because doesn’t everyone? When I told her no she changed her mind. Acted like it never happened and went after Richard instead.”

“Are you serious?”

He gave me a wry sort of look in reply.

“Jesus.” I glanced away, around the refectory, curious what sort of secrets everyone else was keeping. How little we wondered about the inner lives of other people. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It didn’t seem important.”

I thought of him twirling a strand of Wren’s hair around his finger and asked, “Anything else I should know, while we’re on the subject?”

“No. Honestly.” If he was hiding something, his expression—at ease, unaffected—didn’t give it away. Maybe Alexander was right and James and I were equally oblivious.

I shifted my weight. I felt like Richard was watching me, the poster a garish red blotch in my peripheral vision. I turned, sighed at it, and said, “I guess the good news is that after yesterday’s drama he’ll have to stop trying to break your arms in Act III.”

“You think so?”

“You don’t?”

He shook his head in a sad, distracted way. “He’s too smart for that.”

“So … what do you think he’ll do?”

“He’ll lay off, but just for the next few days. He’ll wait for opening night. Gwendolyn’s not going to run onstage and stop the show.” His eyes flicked back and forth across the poster. For a moment he might have forgotten I was there.

James: “Now, in the names of all the gods at once,

Upon what meat does this our Caesar feed,

That he is grown so great?”

I was quiet for a while, then spoke one of my own lines in reply, unsure of where exactly it had come from.

Me:                    “Hold, my hand:

Be factious for redress of all these griefs,

And I will set this foot of mine as far

As who goes farthest.”

James’s gray eyes sparkled gold as he looked back at me and said, “There’s a bargain made.” There was something unfamiliar in his smile, some fierce gladness that made me at once eager and uneasy. I grinned back as best I could, then followed him to the kitchen to get a glass of water. My mouth was unbearably dry.