by Sara Wolf
She cups her hands around Lionel’s face and they do that cheek-kiss-three-times thing I’ve only ever seen in movies.
“It’s so very nice to see you again,” She says, and then her next few sentences are all in French. Or is it Swiss? That’s a thing, right? I’m instantly jealous of the way they effortlessly switch between languages - it’s so fuckin’ cool. It sounds like she’s asking him how he’s been, and Lionel answers back, smiling the biggest smile I’ve seen yet. I try to make myself look graceful and non-destructive and fail spectacularly at both when the orchid in a vase I’m touching snaps its stem.
“Do you like those flowers, Miss Pierce?” The woman’s voice resounds. “They were a gift to me from the King of Cambodia.”
I freeze. A forreal forreal king? Is she messing with me? No - something about her immaculately-put-together entire being says she doesn’t do things like ‘mess’. Sweating, I shove the broken stem behind my back and into the hem of my jeans.
“Yeah, wow. Great color. It’s a very purple, uhh…purple.”
The woman looks me up and down, and then back at Lionel. “She certainly has a way with words, doesn’t she?”
It’s a back-handed compliment, but considering I just broke her plant and hid it in my asscrack, I’m willing to forgive her.
“Thanks,” I blurt a laugh. “I try. Some days harder than others.”
The woman turns back to me, this time without a trace of smile in her eyes. That’s my first clue I’ve fucked up. My second is that all her graceful beauty suddenly turns sharp; her lips set, her peridot gaze imperious.
“You’ll be attending the Institut Le Silvere, Miss Pierce, under my admission; which means you will need to try exceedingly hard every day. We do not tolerate laziness here. Starting today, I am Ms. Von Arx, your new headmistress.”
I gulp. Her stunning eyes parse over an iPad in her lap.
“Your school record was forwarded to me this morning. I must admit, Miss Pierce, you are far less impressive than I expected from William Cunningham’s daughter.”
“Step-daughter,” I half-laugh. “For like, a grand total of four weeks.”
“Repeat tardiness, insubordinate comments to faculty, unexplained absences,” She ignores me in an icy voice. “Defacing bathroom stalls, defacing lockers, defacing a faculty member’s car -”
“To be fair,” I point. “The guy liked to lag behind girls in the stairwells so he could look up their skirts.”
“- smoking during class hours -”
“That was once! I learned my lesson. If ‘learned my lesson’ means ‘violently threw up for an hour and swore to never do it again’.”
Her eyebrow makes the barest silver twitch. “- And your grades are, frankly, abysmal.”
I nod in agreement. “Some of the smarter people have trouble with consistency. Me? Straight C’s since fifth grade.”
“On that note, you have quite a bit of required reading.” She doesn’t miss a beat, picking up a thick book from the polished desk and pressing it into my hands. “Etiquette and behavior are covered inside. It’s faster to read in German, but I’m afraid you’re stuck with the English version. I expect you to have it read by Friday - I will be testing you on it.”
I do a bit of jetlagged math. Friday is -
“In five days?” I gawk. “All of this?”
Von Arx shoots me a chilly look, the sort an empress gives to a jester. She breezes on, but it’s a breeze from Antarctica.
“Your room will be 322, on the third floor of the Knight Lyon building. It’s quite a walk up, but I’m sure the exercise will do you good after sitting in the airplane all day.”
I shoot a helpless look to Lionel. He tactfully avoids my eyes. Ms. Von Arx, on the other hand, confronts me.
“Your classes start tomorrow. Breakfast is at seven. Lunch is noon and dinner is at six.”
“But -”
“You will wear your uniform as per specifications - that’s covered in the book as well. Above all,” She shoulders my hesitation aside. “We pride ourselves on our manners here at Silvere. Tardiness is a most serious infarction, for which you will be penalized. Professors routinely inform me of such things. If you’re late to class with any frequency, your parents will be notified.”
I swallow lead.
“As a student, all buildings on the grounds are open to you. The exception being the watershed, the gardening sheds dotted around campus, and Knight Durand.”
“Knight what?” I blink.
“All chateaus on campus are prefixed with ‘Knight’. Knight Durand on the north end is currently undergoing refurbishment, which means its completely off-limits to students.” The headmistress fixes me with her stare. “Curfew, especially, will be observed; you must be inside your dorm no later than ten-thirty. Our highly-trained security teams patrol at night, and we cannot be held responsible if you incur broken bones simply because you decided to scuttle around the bushes past curfew. Is that clear?”
“Broken bones? Plural?” I blink.
“Curfew and Knight Durand.” Von Arx’s stunning green eyes narrow to slits. “Is. That. Clear?”
Like a contact you lose in the carpet, I think. As a borderline petty criminal, I’m pretty familiar with how the whole sphere of security works. In like, strip malls. But this ain’t a strip mall. It’s not like they keep gems or money on campus, right? So why would they need multiple super-serious security teams? Von Arx stares at me with that queenly gaze until I finally catch the hint and add;
“Crystal clear, ma’am.”
“Good.” She looks over at Lionel and all her terrifying evaporates in a split-second, replaced by a brilliant smile. “A moment before you show her to her room if you would, Lionel.”
Lionel shoots me a grin. “Do you want to wait outside? I’ll be right out.”
Anything to get out from under High-Lady-Asshole. “Sure.”
I make like a bullet out of the doors, paranoid Von Arx’ll spot the flower stem when I turn around and call me back. But she doesn’t, and I close the massive oak slabs behind me with only minor muscle tearing. Not entirely sure where to sit when every upholstery surface looks about ten thousand times worth my Old Navy ass, so I stand. Me and the very nice receptionist lady smile at one another and then stop. The doors are so thick you can barely hear anything. Not that I wanna hear anything anyway. They’re probably talking about my impending doom slash yacht club.
Except whoever invented those giant keyholes in old doors had to know they practically scream ‘EAVESDROP ME’, right? The receptionist gets up and goes to make coffee, her silk-bloused back buried deep in a little kitchenette across the hall. Nosiness gets the better of me. I bend down, pressing my ear to the old-fashioned breach, fully expecting to hear Von Arx talking smack.
“Do you know who it is?” Lionel’s calm voice comes through.
“No,” Von Arx answers, the sound of shuffling papers. “We never do. My grandfather insisted he did, when he was Keeper. But he was in the war - he liked to pretend he knew everything. It could be any of the students.”
“And you’re sure it’s happening now?” Lionel stresses.
“The roses couldn’t lie to me if they tried.” She laughs. “That’s one of their few perks, isn’t it?”
Students? I mouth. Roses? What the fuck are they talking about?
There’s a pause and then I hear Lionel, quieter than ever. Gentler than ever.
“Do you miss him?”
Another pause.
“Of course I do,” Von Arx answers, voice like a dulled hammer. Heavy. “Some days more than others.”
This is the longest pause of all, so long I think they’ve stopped talking and are coming for the door. I pull away but the sudden words pull me back in again;
“Do we call a meeting in Durand?” Lionel asks. “To tell them it’s happening sooner than usual?”
“No,” Von Arx says, hard. “No need to alarm them. We’ll inform them after it’s done. For now we send
the usual invitations and mention nothing about it. ”
I thought Durand was being refurbished - why would they call a meeting in there? Why are they talking like aliens? Why is Will’s driver so tight with the headmistress of Silvere? Tight enough to have inside moments, to understand things about each other. To complete sentences.
Footsteps, muffled over carpet, and every devious bone in my body yanks me back. The door flings open, and Lionel strides out with a smile.
“There you are. Let’s get you to your dorm room, shall we?”
I trot after him, scrabbling for something that doesn’t make me seem like I’ve been eavesdropping for the last few minutes.
“So. Uh. Uniforms? Doesn’t Von Arx know those are anathema to uniqueness? And like, good taste?”
“Says the girl wearing converse,” Lionel flashes me a grin.
“They’re comfortable!”
“They’re bad for your arches,” He insists, leading me out of the chateau and across the lawn to a slightly more modern-looking chateau.
“How do you know that?” I pout.
“I was a kid once, too. I went here, in fact.”
“Is that how you know Miss Manners?” I marvel. “You failed to mention you were loaded during your whole runaway story. Or did you win one of the scholarships?”
Lionel laughs, red curls catching the fresh sun. “Neither. William sent me here. He attended this school himself when he was younger, and wanted the same experience for me.”
I knit my lips. Will’s taken Mom and I out to fancy dinners, to the movies. He let me get the giant-sized popcorn, which earns you at least one star in my Big Book of Decency. He’s been nothing but nice to me - and now that I know how decent he’s been to Lionel I like him more. But that doesn’t stop the worm in my brain from eating away at me; being decent means nothing. Money means nothing. Money doesn’t hide who you are. People change in a blink. Will could turn around and hurt me - or worst case, Mom - out of the blue when I least expect it. I have to be on guard. Always.
I sent Mom a ‘landed safe’ text, but it’s her safety I’m really worried about. I shake my head to clear it. It’s a honeymoon, Lilith. Mom’s happy - everything will be okay.
Everything has to be okay, or I’ll kill him with my own two hands.
Lionel opens the door of the dorm for me, if it can even be called a dorm. It’s furnished like a hotel; there’s a common room with chairs in front of a luxurious black glass fireplace and giant mahogany bookshelves and a huge 4k TV that takes up nearly a whole wall. I’ve never been in a place that smells so clean in my whole life, except maybe the delivery room in the hospital I was pushed out into screaming and covered in Mom-goo. Signs of life slouch in the chairs - two teenagers in uniforms of dark blue slacks, blue blazers with white dress shirts underneath, and matching blue ties tapping on their phones. Students. I do the jetlagged mental math - it’s afternoon. Most of them are probably in classes right now.
“William’s never had any children,” Lionel says as we walk through the lobby and towards an elaborate, gold-leafed (of-fuckin’-course) spiral staircase. I’m so busy staring at the tall stained glass window of flying doves beside it that I nearly trip on the first step. “His first marriage ended in divorce because of it. And then I came along. He’s always treated me as a son, and he’s always accepted me for who I am.”
“And now I’ve waltzed in clumsily and stolen your thunder,” I say. “Hey, completely apropos of nothing, he doesn’t have a history, right?”
Lionel frowns. “A what?”
“Like, is he mean? Does he, you know, lose his temper?”
He shakes his head and laughs. “William? No. He’s the gentlest soul I know.”
It’s gonna take more than the William-adoptee’s word to convince me, but I go along with it anyway and chuckle.
“Obviously. Duh.”
Lionel motions around us. “There are two dorm buildings on campus - Lyon and Belmont. They’re both co-ed, but separated by wings. The east wing is for the boys, and the west is for the girls. The ground floor is for the common room, and the dorm matron’s apartments. You can talk to her if you need anything; blankets, hygiene items, more pillows. Or, if you’re the tattling type, you can tell her the room next to yours blasts too much Coldplay at top volume, and she’ll have a word with them.”
“That’s oddly specific,” I muse.
Lionel shrugs. “We all did things we weren’t proud of in the 2000’s.”
He takes the stairs and talks at the same time like it isn’t a strenuous physical activity, whereas I’m reduced to an attractive pile of boneless chicken by the second floor, my left knee aching under the scar there.
“Fuck off,” I wheeze at the ostentatious chandelier dangling far above me. “I gotta do this every day?”
“You get used to it, eventually.”
That’s not Lionel’s voice. It’s way too deadpan, with a soft yet crisp accent. I look up to see a guy looming in front of me.
Okay, listen; I hate people.
But, and this is a big-ass butt; they’re hot sometimes.
It doesn’t happen often, because I have picky tastes. I think precisely three people on this planet are hot; there’s Rance Cook, the bright blonde junior guy on the varsity soccer team with Probably-Eight-Abs, there’s Melody Guerra, the AP Art sophomore girl who spends all her time making sculptures with her doe eyes and soft hands, and there’s senior Anthony Nguyen, who’s tall and dark-haired and dreamy and is the lead for every play ever put on by the Drama club.
Those people are hot. I knew they were hot, because I could feel it. Because people notice them. Because people are nice to them. Because Ruby hasn’t stopped crushing on Anthony since day one. Because yes, okay, maybe I fell asleep during The Scarlet Letter movie in English and maybe I had my first sex dream about Rance in which I wore nothing but a red cape and he had on a silly pilgrim’s hat but that’s neither here nor there. Hot people radiate heat like little mini suns, drawing everyone’s attention because nuclear fission Looks Neato(™) and human beings appreciate spectacle above all else. But those people are rare. And they’re definitely not in high school, where most people are in the liquefy-my-pimply-body-inside-a-cocoon stage of turning into a butterfly. Myself included. It’s a bonafide pagan miracle we have three hot people at Northview all at the same time. Had. I guess I’m not there anymore, huh?
All of which is to say the guy in front of me doesn’t just radiate heat. He’s practically charring all the oxygen out of the stairwell. There’s a reason human beings don’t have cheekbones that high or jawlines that glass-cut in real life, and that’s because it’s dangerous! You could hurt yourself on this guy’s face! He looks down his slender nose at me with gray eyes framed by impossibly blonde lashes. His hair is bright gold and slicked back, precise bangs framing his face on either side. He looks like God turned up the River Phoenix dial to eleven, or like an angel in a Renaissance painting decided to take a quick vacay down on earth for 100 mortal years. His uniform is spotless; not even a crumb, or a skin flake. All his buttons are shining, his starched collar perfectly pressed, his tie straight. And he’s actually…he’s actually taller than me. He’s too well-put together to be my age. Probably, like, college?
“Do they…” I say, strangled. “Do they do college here?”
He raises one fine gold eyebrow. “What?”
That one little move sends off warning bells in my head. Ho-lee shit, this guy makes Rance Cook look like a fucking gremlin. My entire body informs me of this by raising its temperature ten degrees.
“S-Sorry,” I stammer. “I’m not making sense, am I? Kinda overwhelmed right now tbh.”
Nothing. He doesn’t even blink. This guy is stone and ice. Hot stone and ice. Which is, uh, liquid cement and like, water, I guess? What’s wrong with my analogies all of a sudden? This is why twelve-year-old me wrote I WILL NEVER FALL IN LOVE in bubble letters in my diary with sparkly purple gel pen. God - she was so smart. And a
ngsty. But mostly smart.
And then I see it; a curve. The golden-haired guy’s fine lips split in a grin, so slight it almost feels like an illusion. And I combust. Quietly.
“This place might look intimidating,” He says, voice musical. “But it’s not so bad under the surface. Just give yourself time.”
“Uh, I will. Thanks. Yeah.” I pluck up my bountiful courage, marching away up the staircase with as much grace as I can muster. Which is precisely none. I trip over my own converse and tilt backwards and as the great philosopher Pooh once said oh-fucking-bother-I’m-gonna-eat-shit-in-front-of-the-first-guy-in-my-life-I-actually-find-wildly-attractive-aren’t-I? My glasses fly off, and it happens so fast all I can do is flail my arms and squeeze my eyes shut to prep for pain.
But…there’s nothing.
I open my blurry eyes, the bones of someone’s arms digging into my back. Above me golden hair comes into focus, and a calm glass-cut face with silver-gray eyes. The front of my brain is megaphoning ‘KISS ME’ directly into his ear, and the back half is whispering with its tail between its legs that he just saved me from a potential coma.
Wait - hold up. He’s touching me.
This is the part where you say ‘duh, Lilith, he had to do that to save you from falling’, and this next bit is the part where I explain to you that when people touch me, we have problems. Big problems, along the lines of ‘instant-and-overwhelming-itchy-panic’ and ‘ten-gigaton-urge-to-run-away’. Probably should’ve told you earlier, but alas. There’s definitely a word for it in fancy psychologist latin, but like fuck Mom could ever afford to get me a shrink with all the student loan debt she has. So it’s never gotten an official name. For me, it just is. It’s just a part of me. You don’t give names to your eyeballs, or your skin.
It’s not bad with Mom, or Ruby - people I know really well. The problem is I don’t know anybody else. So everyone makes me panic. Little finger-touches are fine, accidental half-second shoulder brushing. It’s the intentional, close, body-on-body contact shit that sends my brain spiraling into a hole of fear. Hugs. Handshakes. Kissing, not that it’ll ever happen. Sex, not that that’ll ever happen. Nearness. And definitely this - this weird dance-dip embrace between me and Hot Dude should be more than enough to make the paranoia rear up.
