If We Were Villains: A Novel

I shoved my way up the stairs, nearly hurling a philosophy student over the banister in my rush to get away from Studio Five. I dropped a book but didn’t go back for it—someone would pick it up; my name was in the cover. When I got to the gallery I threw the door open without knocking, closed it behind me, and pressed my back flat against it. A sneeze began to form under the splint on my nose, and for a moment I didn’t dare breathe, afraid of how much it would hurt.

“Oliver?” Frederick peered out from behind the blackboard, a chalk rag in one hand.

“Yes,” I said, exhaling all at once. “I’m sorry, I just—wanted some quiet.”

“Understandable. Why don’t you sit, and I’ll pour tea?”

I nodded, eyes watering from the effort of holding back the sneeze, and crossed the room to look out the window. Everything was bleak and gray, the lake dull and lusterless under a thin layer of ice. From so far and so high, it looked like a fogged mirror, and I imagined God reaching down to smear the glass clean with his sleeve.

“Honey?” Frederick asked. “Lemon?”

“Yes, please,” I said, my mind distant from my mouth. James and Meredith were tangled and wrestling in my brain. Sweat prickled on my scalp and between my shoulder blades. I wanted to fling the window open, let a cold blast of winter wind deaden my creeping fever, freeze through me until I couldn’t feel a thing.

Frederick carried my cup and saucer over, and I gulped down a mouthful of tea. It scalded my tongue and the roof of my mouth and I tasted nothing, not even the sour sting of lemon. Frederick watched me bemusedly. I tried to smile at him, but it must have been more like a grimace because he tapped the side of his nose and said, “How is it?”

“Itchy,” I said. A knee-jerk reply, but honest enough.

His face was blank at first and then he chuckled. “You, Oliver,” he said, “are truly indomitable.”

My smile cracked like plaster.

He shuffled back to the sideboard to continue pouring tea. I rolled my fingers into the tightest fists I could make, fighting an impulse to scream or maybe let that crazy laugh out, finally, even though my throat was still raw and sore from the night Alexander overdosed.

The late bell rang and I glanced up at Frederick, who was checking the little gold watch on his wrist. “Is everyone else tardy?” he said.

“I don’t know.” My voice was stiff, brittle. “Alexander’s in the clinic, and Wren’s coming back tomorrow, but…”

“The rest of them?”

“I don’t know,” I said again, unable to suppress a flash of panic. “They were all in Gwendolyn’s class.” The small rational part of my brain spat out a list of reasons they might be late. They were rattled after our last lesson, most likely. Tired. Not feeling well. PTSD.

Frederick peered out through the hall door, looking first one way, then the other, like a child preparing to cross the street. I reached for my tea, hoping it would settle my nerves, but the cup slipped from my unsteady hand. Blistering hot liquid splashed across my skin—I yelped in pain, and the china shattered on the floor.

Frederick moved faster than I had ever seen him do, starting and whirling around at the door. “Oliver,” he said, in a tone of surprise that was almost reproachful.

“I’m sorry!” I said. “I’m sorry, it slipped and I—”

“Oliver,” he said again, closing the door behind him. “I am not concerned about the cup.” He reached for a napkin on the sideboard and brought it to me. I dried my hands as best I could while they were shaking so badly and breathed in short, strange hiccups, gulping the chalky air down like it might run out. Frederick lowered himself into the chair that James usually occupied. “Look at me, please, Oliver,” he said, sternly but softly. I raised my eyes. “Now. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Everyone’s—” I shook my head as I shredded the napkin with seared and smarting fingertips. “We’re all falling apart.”

I knew by then the way the story went. Our little drama was rapidly hurtling toward its climactic crisis. What next, when we reached the precipice?

First, the reckoning. Then, the fall.