Chapter 19: Chapter 18

After that afternoon in the bathroom, Rigel did everything in his power to avoid crossing paths with me.

It wasn’t that we shared all that many moments together, in truth, but those that we did withered away almost to nothing. It was typical of Rigel to be so distant and avoidant, silent, discreet and indifferent.

He avoided me during the daytime. In the mornings, he would make sure to leave before me.

Walking to school by myself, I remembered all the times in which I had walked a short distance behind him, never daring to be next to him.

I couldn’t make sense of the feelings he provoked in me.

Wasn’t this what I’d always wanted? For him to be far away from me?

Even when I’d arrived here, I wanted nothing more than for him to disappear.

I should have felt relieved. And yet…

The more his eyes evaded mine, the more I couldn’t stop seeking them.

The more he ignored me, the more I couldn’t help but constantly wonder why.

The more Rigel kept his distance…the more I felt the thread that bound us tensing, as if it was an extension of me.

That’s how it was in that moment. I was walking down the landing, thinking about him. I had just got back from school, but as usual, I was lost in thought, cut off from the world, so I didn’t immediately notice the floorboards creak. Then, I realised that the creaking was coming from the room nearest to me.

I momentarily put aside what was on my mind and my insatiable curiosity led me to poke my head around the door.

I froze in surprise.

‘Asia?’

She turned around.

What was she doing there?

She was standing silently right in the middle of the room. She was holding a scarf I had seen her with before, but I didn’t have the slightest idea what she was doing in our house. When had she got here?

‘I didn’t know you had dropped by,’ I said, seeing as she didn’t pay me any notice. Her gaze slid over the walls as if I wasn’t there. ‘What…what are you doing in Rigel’s room?’

This was apparently the wrong thing to say. Her angry glare became as sharp as a thorn. I was forced to step aside as she walked past me without a word.

‘Asia?’ Anna called from the stairwell. ‘Is everything all right? Have you found it?’

‘Yes. I’d left it on the bench in your room. It was on the floor. Thanks for letting me check.’ I followed her out of Rigel’s room and onto the landing as she closed the door behind us. She waved the scarf then stuffed it in her bag.

Anna came up and brushed her arm with a smile that radiated a warmth destined just for her.

‘It’s no bother at all,’ she was saying sweetly. ‘You know you can come by any time you want. We’re on your way to campus, come and drop in to say hello every now and then…’

For no apparent reason, insecurity clawed at my chest. I tried to subdue it, but it slithered through my heart, tainting everything with spite and wretchedness.

Suddenly, every detail seemed amplified to the utmost degree. Anna’s gaze was shining when she spoke with her. Her fondness for this girl was deep and maternal.

She smiled at her, cuddled her. She treated her like a daughter.

At the end of the day, who was I, compared to her? What could my few weeks count for, in comparison with a lifetime?

I began to feel familiar sensations of alienation. I balled my fists and struggled not to compare myself to her. It wasn’t like me to make comparisons like that. I had never had a competitive streak, and yet…My heart was racing. I plunged into my anxieties. There was no escape. The world went dark.

Maybe I would never be enough.

Maybe Anna had realised…

What if she realised she had made a mistake?

If she had seen how dull, strange and broken I was?

My temples throbbed. Irrational fears crawled over my skin and my mind tormented me with images of The Grave, the gates sliding open again for me.

I’ll be good.

Anna laughed again.

I’ll be good.

My throat went tight.

I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I’ll be good…

‘Nica?’

I swear.

Anna was watching me, her brow slightly furrowed. There was a hesitant smile on her lips.

‘Is everything…okay?’

My blood pounded in my head. I hid my face behind my hair and forced myself to nod. I froze.

‘You’re sure?’

I nodded again and hoped she wouldn’t press. Anna was caring and attentive, but her soul was too pure to doubt my sincerity.

‘Okay, well, I’ll take Asia downstairs…I brought some flowers from the shop for her to take home…’ I could hardly hear what she was saying, and missed the last few words.

It was only once they had moved away that I was able to breathe again.

I unclenched my fist and stretched out my fingers. I often had moments like these, it was impossible to fight them. I was used to unfounded panic, to sudden moments of intense anxiety, to the disorientating sensation that I was stuck in a suffocating bubble. One too many remarks would provoke uncontrollable anxiety, one too few would feed my monstrous insecurities.

Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and be unable to fall back to sleep. In my nightmares I would relive an anguish that I had hoped, futilely, to forget.

It was rooted deep inside me, lurking in wait for the right moment to wield my vulnerabilities against me.

I had to hide them. Hide myself. Anna and Norman would only keep choosing me if I appeared perfect. That was the only way I could flee from the past, the only way I could have a family, the only way I’d get another chance…

I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my wrists. I breathed slowly, trying to dispel the venom that had invaded my heart. The sound of running water didn’t do anything to change my reaction, but it did calm me down. I remembered that my skin was free, intact, unconstrained, that I didn’t need to feel like a frightened little girl any more.

She was no longer imprinted on my body.

Just on my mind.

When I was sure the feelings had passed, I went downstairs. Norman was home for lunch that day. I was comforted that he welcomed me with a smile, sat in his normal place.

I realised how unfounded my reaction had been. We were building something together, and Asia couldn’t take that away from me.

I noticed then that someone was already sitting in the seat next to mine.

Rigel totally ignored me. His elbow was leaning on the table and he was looking down at his plate. I only noticed a moment later that there was something different about his silence.

He seemed…vexed.

‘It’s just a grade,’ Anna said calmly, cutting her chicken. She tried in vain to meet his eyes. ‘It’s nothing, you don’t need to worry about it.’

I suddenly got the impression that I had missed something important.

Sitting down, I tried to catch the gist of the conversation. I was stupefied.

Had Rigel…done badly in a test?

His irritated expression indicated that he hadn’t been expecting it either.

Rigel always considered every action, every consequence, he never left anything to chance. But this…he hadn’t expected this. He couldn’t bear to appear weak, or to be at the centre of Anna’s attention. His teacher must have been concerned about the unexpected test result too, and insisted that Rigel discuss it at home.

‘Why don’t you study together?’

I froze, my fork halfway to my mouth. Anna looked me in the eyes.

‘What?’

‘It would be ideal, wouldn’t it? You said you did well in the test,’ she smiled proudly at me. ‘Maybe you could do a couple of exercises tog—’

‘That’s not necessary.’

Rigel had sharply interrupted her. It was completely unexpected to hear him reply to her like that, and, when I looked at her, I noticed that her hands were tenser than normal. She looked surprised and a little sad.

‘I can’t see what harm it would do,’ she said cautiously. ‘You could both help each other…after all, it’s the same subject. Why don’t you give it a try?’ She turned to me. ‘What do you think, Nica?’

I looked at Anna’s face. I wanted to make her happy, but I couldn’t deny feeling very uneasy. Why did I always find myself in these situations? It would have been easier to reply if Rigel hadn’t been avoiding me like the plague.

‘Yeah,’ I murmured, trying to give her a smile. ‘Okay…’

‘You’ll help Rigel with a few exercises?’

I nodded, and Anna seemed pleased. She smiled and served everyone another portion of stuffed peppers.

Next to me, Rigel remained shrouded in that indecipherable silence.

And yet, it seemed as though he was gripping his cutlery with more force than was necessary.

—

An hour later, I was looking around my room.

Anna had suggested that we study upstairs, because that afternoon she was getting some flowers delivered and the noise might disturb us. I didn’t need to look at Rigel to know there was no chance we would be using his room for our study session…

I moved my desk into the middle of the room, grabbed another chair and positioned it next to mine.

Why were my palms sweating?

The question answered itself. I couldn’t imagine myself helping Rigel with exercises, or even just explaining something to him. It was surreal. He had always been a step ahead of everyone else…When had he ever let anyone help him?

Neither of us had uttered a word to one another in days. If it hadn’t been for Anna and Norman, we probably would have even avoided each other at mealtimes.

Why? Why was it that every time it seemed we’d taken a step forwards, he took five steps back?

I jumped when I eventually noticed his presence behind me. He was standing in the doorway, tall and silent.

The sleeves of his sweater were pushed up to his elbows. In one hand, he was holding a couple of books. His eyes were unperturbed, and staring at me as if he’d been there for a while.

Be calm, I ordered my heart, as Rigel looked around warily.

‘I’ve already got the books out,’ I stuttered.

He stepped cautiously into the room.

I wished I could say that I was used to him, but sadly that wasn’t true. Rigel wasn’t one of those boys that typically you can get used to. His narrow, panther-like eyes were simply destabilising.

His slender presence filled the room. He came towards me and I realised that this was the first time he had been in my room.

For some absurd reason my nervousness grew.

‘I’ll grab my notebook,’ I said faintly.

I went to go get my stuff out of my backpack then walked to the door and made to close it.

‘What are you doing?’

His steely eyes were pinned on me.

‘The noise…’ I explained. ‘It might disturb us…’

‘Leave the door open.’

I slowly withdrew my hand. Rigel threw me a lingering glance before turning round. I couldn’t understand why he’d insisted on that.

Did it bother him so much to be in the same room as me?

I felt a prick in my chest.

Without a word, I went and sat down. I kept my eyes on the textbook, kept turning the pages until I heard him coming to sit down next to me.

That peacefulness was unusual for us, but I had to keep going. At the end of the day, it wasn’t complicated, it was just a study session.

I decided to steel myself, strengthened my resolve, and pointed at one of the exercises in the textbook.

‘Let’s start with one of these.’

There was a moment of silence and I felt the tension rising immeasurably. Had he noticed the tremble in my voice? I kept my eyes fixed on the problem I’d picked out, incapable of lifting my gaze.

Then, to my surprise, wordlessly, Rigel started writing.

I didn’t move as he wrote down figures and solutions in intent silence. My astonishment grew. Experience had led me to believe that he would give me his usual impudent, hurtful sneer, poke fun at me and leave.

But instead, he was here.

He hadn’t left. He was still next to me, writing…

I jumped when, after a while, I noticed that he had stopped. I stared at him, wrongfooted.

‘Have you f…finished already?’

I leant over to look at his notebook. I was stunned. He had solved the problem, rigorously and precisely. His hand lay still next to his workings.

How long had it taken him? Three minutes?

‘Okay…’ I acknowledged, embarrassed. I found some more complicated problems. ‘Let’s try these ones.’

I pointed at several exercises with the end of my pencil, and he proceeded to solve them all meticulously, one by one. I was entranced by the fluid movement of the pen in his hand. He wrote in an elegant cursive, without any unnecessary flourishes. It seemed like the handwriting of a boy from long ago.

I noticed that he had a very masculine grip. His wrist had well-defined bones and tight nerves. His long, strong pianist fingers turned the page of his notebook and he continued writing.

My gaze slowly moved up his arm.

His veins stood out against his skin, his powerful bone structure emanated strength and security.

The top three buttons of his blue sweatshirt were undone, exposing the base of his neck, which pulsed slowly with the rhythm of his breaths.

How tall was he? Was he still growing? Even sitting down he would have towered over me if he leant over.

His head rested on his half-closed hand in a relaxed, concentrated pose. His soft, black hair fell over his eyes, perfectly framing his elegant features.

He was so enchanting he made me shiver.

He had the power to bewitch my heart.

To rip out my soul and charm it like a snake.

Rigel was like a perfect symbiosis, a lethal fusion of silk and shadow.

He was terrible, irreverent, but also the most gorgeous creature I had ever seen…

I jumped.

The bubble of my thoughts suddenly burst under the intensity of his eyes, which were no longer looking at his notebook. They were looking intently at me.

‘F…finished?’ I croaked. My voice was verging on ridiculous. Had he noticed me gazing at him, wonderstruck?

Rigel examined my face, then nodded. The hand his head was resting on was pulling one of his eyelids slightly to one side, making his gaze look like a cat’s.

I felt feverish.

What was happening to me?

‘Okay…Let’s try something different.’

I turned the page, trying to hide how nervous I was. I decided to get straight to the point, and pointed at one of the exercises we’d been set in preparation for the test. Still stubbornly silent, Rigel set about tackling the problem.

This time I concentrated on his calculations. Just his calculations. I followed his workings carefully, making sure that everything was correct. After a while, something caught my eye.

‘No, Rigel…Hold on.’

I peered closer and saw his hand stop.

‘No…not like that.’ I looked closely at his workings. His logic was faultless, but this wasn’t how this problem got solved.

I flicked through my notebook and somewhat hesitantly showed him the pages on vectors.

‘See? It says that the magnitude of the difference between two vectors is always equal to or greater than the difference between the magnitude of the two vectors taken individually…’

I tried to explain to him in words what the textbook only expressed in formulae. I pointed at the exercise with a finger wrapped in a Band-Aid.

‘So, we need to write out the magnitude like this…’

Rigel looked at my notes with a different sort of attention. He really was listening to me.

He continued with the exercise more slowly. I watched him go, line by line.

‘Okay…That’s it. Now the arithmetic. Exactly…’

Step by step, we reached the solution. For the first time in my life, I noticed a hint of uncertainty in him, but that just spurred me on. When he finished the exercise, I checked that everything had been carried out correctly.

‘Good…’ I said, as he carefully studied the solution. ‘Let’s try another one.’

We tackled exercise after exercise. The minutes rushed by like the wind, the silence only interrupted by my occasional murmurs.

After around an hour, a fair few problems had been ticked off by my pencil.

Rigel was finishing yet another exercise and we were both immersed in deep concentration, together.

‘Okay…’ I reached over the desk to add a little arrow that he had forgotten onto a vector. ‘The S vector is on the x-axis…exactly…’

My elbows were leaning on the table. I was so absorbed that I hadn’t realised I was sitting on the edge of my seat.

‘The vector forms a 45-degree angle with the x-axis…’

I checked all his workings carefully.

They were all correct. This exercise, too, was perfect.

Had I succeeded? Had I really been able to help Rigel with something?

And had he, for once…really let himself be helped?

I felt a vivid, profound happiness.

I swiftly turned to give him a radiant smile, my eyes like glowing half-moons.

‘You got it…’ I breathed softly.

But whatever I had been about to say next…lost all meaning.

We were close. A breath away.

I had been concentrating so hard that I hadn’t realised how I had been inching towards him, leaning over the desk, my hair falling down my back.

I turned my head and found his eyes boring into mine.

I saw my reflection in those black depths and found myself unable to breathe.

And Rigel, his head still resting on his hand, stared at me with slightly widened eyes and a cool expression.

My eyes in his, like a lunar eclipse.

Nica’s eyes.

He didn’t move. His heart had stopped.

Everything suddenly froze, the moment her smile lit up the world.

He knew it. He knew he shouldn’t have gone.

He knew he shouldn’t have let her get so close.

And now it was too late. Nica had looked at him, smiled at him, and torn away another shred of his soul.

On the desk, his hand was crushing the pen. Fierce tremors came from within him, from hidden ravines that she, so close and bright, had awakened.

She drew back, and every second of that movement gave him a sense of relief so strong it was almost painful.

‘Rigel…’ she murmured, almost fearfully. ‘There’s something I want to ask you.’

Nica looked down at her soft hands clasped in her lap, depriving the world of light, just for a moment.

‘It’s something…that I’ve been wondering about for a while.’

She looked up at him, and Rigel desperately hoped that she wouldn’t see his hand trembling right in the middle of the table. She was staring at him in that way of hers, with those large eyes and eyelashes curled like daisy petals.

‘What did you mean? When you said I was the Tearsmith?’

Rigel couldn’t even remember how many times he had imagined her asking this question, in a thousand different scenarios – it always came when he was feeling the most exhausted and destructive, when he was at his limit, when he was clamouring for redemption.

He gave her back everything he had never been able to put into words. He threw the truth right at her, and bled with every thorn he pulled out. And it was a pain that transformed into relief, as a warm light radiated through all the holes, all the wounds those thorns had left behind.

She was his redemption.

But in that moment…in that moment when Nica had really asked him and waited for his answer, Rigel felt nothing but a visceral terror. And so, before even giving himself a chance, he heard his own voice replying: ‘Forget it.’

Nica looked at him, confused and painfully beautiful.

‘What?’

‘I said forget it.’

Her face fell.

‘Why?’

She knew, she had realised this was important. You can’t just make certain accusations then hope they’ll be forgotten. He could see it in her eyes.

Her gaze, for him, was something akin to hell.

He would always wonder why those eyes seemed so disappointed by his actions, his silences. For the rest of his life, he would constantly wonder about that wound dripping from her silvery eyes.

Those eyes would always torment him.

And Rigel only knew one way to protect himself against torment.

‘Don’t tell me you really believed it?’ he said sarcastically. ‘You didn’t really think I was being serious?’

He flashed her a provocative smile.

‘Have you been thinking about it all this time, little moth?’

Nica winced. He noticed the curve of her neck behind her hair and his insides started writhing.

‘Don’t do that.’ Her voice hardened.

‘Don’t do what?’

‘That,’ she looked at him stubbornly. ‘Don’t do it.’

Hearing her speak with such determination pushed him towards her.

He was so fatally attracted to her when that side of her came out. For all her sweetness, Nica was capable of a tenacity that made him lose his mind.

‘That’s just what I’m like,’ he said, leaning towards her tiny body.

‘No. That’s just how you behave.’

Now she was leaning towards him, and Rigel recoiled, with his body, and his heart.

‘What did you mean?’ she insisted. ‘Rigel…’

‘Forget it,’ he spat through gritted teeth.

‘Please…’

‘Nica.’

‘Answer me!’

Nica’s hand grabbed his bare wrist and he felt his heart burning.

He jumped to his feet and tore away from her.

The violence of the action reverberated in Nica’s eyes. He saw her wavering, upset, and the whole room started to tremble.

Rigel found himself battling to control the writhing in his chest. He clenched his fists, trying to hold them still, and she looked at him with large, fearful eyes.

‘Don’t…’ He took a deep breath, trying to control himself. He was burning so intensely he was worried Nica could feel it. ‘Don’t touch me.’ He hurried to put on a smile, masking himself behind a cruel smirk that almost hurt. ‘I’ve told you before.’

He didn’t have time to see the flash of hurt in her eyes. She charged towards him, her eyes glinting with anger.

‘Why?’ she asked loudly, her voice cracking. She was like an injured animal, folded over in pain. ‘Why not? Why can’t I touch you?’

Rigel stepped back, bowled over by her anger.

And God, she was so beautiful, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining with determination. God, it hurt him so much, how forcefully, irresistibly attracted he was to her.

It was too much, even for him.

Don’t touch me, he wanted to tell her again, wanted to beg of her again, but Nica came closer, shattered his defences, her little fingers still burning his skin.

His tortured soul ruptured in astonishment.

The next moment, all he could hear was his teeth grinding and her sharp breath in.

The movement took my breath away.

A moment ago, I had been gripping on to his arm. The next thing I knew, my back was against the wall.

Rigel’s eyes swallowed me up like sinkholes.

His chest was rising and falling with his heavy breathing and his forearm was over my head. His body loomed over me, so close I could feel his heat like a scorching sun’s.

I shook like a leaf. I looked into his eyes, breathless, my voice reduced to a rattling gasp.

‘I…I…’

He grabbed my jaw and tilted my face upward towards his.

His fingertips were burning against my skin. I couldn’t breathe.

Silent hurricanes roared in his eyes. He was so close I could feel his breath tickling my cheeks.

I was gasping for breath, my cheeks were so hot I felt my whole body burning under his touch.

‘Rigel…’ I whispered, confused and frightened.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. His thumb slid lightly over my mouth, as if to still the whisper that had made my lips tremble.

Slowly, he brushed my lower lip. His thumb sunk into the yielding flesh of my mouth, rubbing it, burning it, making it throb.

My knees gave in when I saw that his eyes were fixed on the point where he was touching me.

‘Forget it.’ His lips moved hypnotically.

All I could hear was him. The sound of his voice shot straight into my veins.

‘You’ve got to…forget it.’

I tried, in vain, to make sense of the glint of bitterness in his eyes.

In his eyes raged hurricanes and storms, dangers and forbidden places…but my desire to explore them grew day by day. My heart was thumping. That realisation frightened me.

Getting lost in the woods meant finding the path.

But getting lost in the wolf…meant being lost forever.

Why did I so badly need to touch his world, to understand it?

Why couldn’t I just forget it all, like he asked me to?

Why did I see galaxies in his eyes, and in his solitude a soul to touch with caution?

After a moment, I noticed that his hand was no longer on my face.

I felt an inexplicable loss when I realised that he had already walked away. I blinked as I watched him stride out the room, clutching his book in whitened fists.

Rigel was running away. Again.

This realisation disturbed me. When had our roles swapped? Since when had he run away from me?

Since always, I whispered to myself. He’s always been running away from you.

Maybe it was a seed of madness that had sprouted inside of me.

I didn’t know how else to explain it. I disobeyed him and my own senses, steeled myself and ran after him.