Fence--Striking Distance

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  When you weren’t feeling it, you weren’t feeling it.

  Shortly after, Aiden found himself alone in his room, which hardly ever happened. On the rare occasions it did, Aiden was used to knowing where he could go to find Harvard and expect a warm welcome: at his house or hanging out with friends or in the salle. Tonight, Aiden couldn’t go be where Harvard was. Tonight, Harvard was on his stupid date.

  Aiden decided he would take advantage of the peace and quiet to write his essay. He’d done some reading about what might be expected from this sort of assignment, and one idea had been life lessons Aiden had learned from trusted authority figures.

  Aiden’s father had remarked once that some women were sports cars on the way to champagne brunch, and some were family vans headed to soccer practice. Aiden knew which his father preferred.

  Aiden’s father didn’t actually talk to the women in his life, but Aiden did. Many of his dad’s girlfriends got lonely. They would chatter to Aiden in order to pass the time and fill the echoing Italian-marble rooms with some semblance of life.

  Sometimes what they said was useful.

  Heather the professional cheerleader, who could put her hair up into a high and sleek ponytail in two seconds flat, told him once, “Other girls on the squad say couples split because of money or cheating or fights, but I don’t think so. There’s only one reason relationships end: Somebody loses interest. And somebody always will. Just make sure you’re the one who loses interest first, Aidy.”

  Aiden nodded shyly. “How do you make someone interested in the first place?”

  Heather’s injection-paralyzed brow failed to wrinkle as she thought. “Don’t be too nice. Don’t care too much. Don’t let them be sure of you. Always be something different and gorgeous and fascinating, so they don’t know what to expect.”

  “Like a chameleon?”

  “Sure, if you’re always a beautiful chameleon. Just remember to be gone long before you lose a man’s interest, I always say!” Heather added, winking and laughing merrily at her own lovely face in the mirror.

  Aiden was just a prop in the room back then, a slight, unremarkable kid only useful as an audience. The only person who really noticed him was Harvard, and Harvard noticed everybody.

  Heather hadn’t taken her own advice. She’d lingered too long, and Aiden’s dad had ditched her with particular viciousness. Aiden had heard her crying as she left, seen the proud plume of her ponytail drooping as she’d climbed into the car. Aiden never let his own head drop like that.

  What did it matter how people left? What mattered was that they did.

  Aiden abandoned his essay and went to sulk cross-legged on his bed, pulling his bear into his lap for comfort.

  It was almost ten o’clock at night. Harvard usually went to bed early so he could get up and practice, but Aiden supposed that wouldn’t be the case anymore. He’d have constant late nights now that he was dating.

  “You might be in a single-parent family now, Harvard Paw,” Aiden told his bear. “I’ll do my best, but you know I’m not the responsible type. You’ll probably run wild from lack of supervision and eat picnics belonging to hikers. Or babies belonging to hikers. I don’t know, I foresee hiker-related tragedy ahead.”

  Harvard must be having a wonderful time on his date. He had forsaken all his captainly duties in the pursuit of romance. Those freshmen needed him. Would nobody think of the freshmen? Aiden certainly wasn’t going to.

  Just as Aiden was contemplating the demise of the entire fencing team, the door opened. Harvard walked in. He’d got dressed up for his date. He was wearing a nice button-down shirt and his gray wool coat, but the coat sat differently now than it usually did. His shoulders were slumped underneath it.

  Aiden cast aside Harvard Paw and leaped up from the bed. Harvard barely seemed to notice. He shut the door, and then leaned back against it. Then he slid bonelessly to the floor.

  “Aw, did the date go badly, buddy?”

  —thank you, thank you, God, thank you—

  “No?” Harvard offered, as though he weren’t sure.

  “No?” echoed Aiden, who needed to be sure. “Did it go well?”

  “I think…,” Harvard said at length. “I think… too well?”

  “What does that mean?”

  No answers were forthcoming; Harvard seemed to be in a state of shock. He just sat there, back against the door, staring at the wall.

  Earlier, Aiden had casually called Harvard’s mother, acquired this awful girl’s full name, and found her on all forms of social media. She updated frequently, usually about the lousy music she enjoyed. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t already thought to check her accounts tonight.

  There was a new post—a picture of Harvard looking adorable and attentive and holding a double scoop of chocolate ice cream. Underneath the picture was the caption When you think he might be THE ONE!!!!!! #bestnightever.

  Oh no, oh no, oh no.

  Aiden was perfectly aware, had always been burningly aware, that Harvard was one hundred percent boyfriend material. He’d dedicated his entire life to making sure nobody else caught on. Now all Aiden’s efforts had come to nothing.

  “I know what to do!” Aiden declared. “Give me your phone. Right now. Don’t question me, this is an emergency.”

  Harvard, seemingly on autopilot, handed over his phone. Aiden stared at it, devoting intense contemplation to the task ahead. Then he swept his hair back with one hand, and with the other he began to tap out some messages.

  After seven minutes, he offered Harvard his phone back.

  Harvard blinked at the phone as though he wasn’t entirely sure what it was. “What…”

  “Congratulations!” Aiden told him. “You’re now blocked on every form of social media Shirley possesses.”

  “Cindy,” murmured Harvard. “I’m what?”

  That was the beauty of this result. Now that the girl was out of Harvard’s life, Aiden didn’t have to remember her name anymore. She had nothing to do with them.

  Shock was clearing from Harvard’s face and being replaced with a gathering fury. There was no gratitude in this world.

  “Aiden, what did you do? What did you say to her?”

  Aiden shrugged lazily. “Nothing much. The usual stuff I say when I get impatient—the type of message that makes guys stop being infatuated and block me. I was going for speed and effectiveness, not finesse. And voilà. You’re welcome.”

  His roommate scrolled through his own phone, making indignant faces at Aiden’s messages. When he came to one message in particular, he dropped his phone on the floor.

  Yeah, Aiden might have gone too far with that one.

  “I didn’t ask you to do this! I didn’t want you to do this. I would have let her down kindly but firmly,” said Harvard.

  “I couldn’t take that chance,” muttered Aiden.

  “Why did you do this?”

  Aiden opened and closed his mouth, then opened it again and said decidedly, “You were upset. I was trying to solve your problem for you.”

  “That wasn’t my problem.”

  “Then—” Aiden said. “What was your problem?”

  “I walked Cindy to her doorstep,” said Harvard slowly.

  “For future reference,” Aiden suggested, “you can leave them at the gate. Or drop them off by the side of the road and say ‘See ya!’ That’s a real time-saver.”

  Harvard gave Aiden a doubtful look. “Your success with men is a mystery to me.”

  Aiden was aware. He forced himself to smile. “I’m sexually magnetic, so jot that down. Mystery solved.” Aiden clapped his hands together. “Proceed with your story!”

  Harvard did so, his face now clouded with distress. Aiden had spent the whole night praying for clouds, but not these.

  “We were standing together on her porch. She told me she’d had a great time. Then she sort of—swayed in toward me, and I could tell that. Uh. That she wanted to kiss me.”

  Aiden had known this girl wa
s bad news.

  “You… kiss people all the time.” Harvard cleared his throat, slightly awkward. “Like, you’ve probably kissed someone within the last five minutes.”

  Aiden tipped his hand back and forth. “Maybe an hour ago. Laurence.”

  He wasn’t used to talking about kissing with Harvard. He refused to let it show this affected him.

  “Wow, no, that was Byron,” Harvard informed him. “You were calling him Laurence? That’s worse than usual.”

  “Really? Byron? You’d think I would remember a guy called Byron,” Aiden mused. “Anyway, enough of Byron. I won’t be seeing him again. We couldn’t even agree about the weather.”

  Harvard looked out the window. “What’s to agree about? It’s a nice night.”

  Aiden beamed approval at him. Harvard was so wise. “It is a nice night. And still early. Sorry your date was a lousy kisser, but what do you say we watch a movie and you can revisit dating another time?”

  Such as college. Or grad school! You can’t hurry love. Sometimes, Aiden had heard, you just had to wait.

  Harvard stated in a distant voice, “She wasn’t a lousy kisser.”

  “Oh,” said Aiden. “She was a really great kisser?”

  He regretted Cindy had already blocked Harvard. Aiden had more things to say to her.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t kiss her,” Harvard told their floorboards. “She sort of swayed in toward me, and I panicked and I, uh, kissed her on the forehead and ruffled her hair and ran off.”

  “Good call!” Aiden said. “There’s no need to rush this stuff. When you’re ready! Or never! Never is fine, too.”

  He wondered idly how Harvard had got the Best Night Ever hashtag with a forehead kiss. No, he could picture how it had been. She must have thought Harvard was the last of the true gentlemen. She wasn’t wrong. Harvard had probably reached out and enfolded her in his arms, and she’d felt taken care of and cherished.

  “I didn’t want to kiss her,” Harvard confessed very quietly.

  “Why would you?” asked Aiden. “She has terrible taste in music and uses too many exclamation points!”

  “I never…,” said Harvard. “I never thought about it before. I always thought I’d… want to one day? That it would feel right. But I don’t think I want to kiss girls at all.”

  “Oh,” said Aiden. “Oh.”

  They’d had this conversation before, from the opposite side. Harvard had assured Aiden of Harvard’s eternal friendship and how all kinds of love were beautiful, which hadn’t exactly been what Aiden was looking for.

  Aiden couldn’t believe this was happening. He was too surprised to be supportive.

  “So… you might want to kiss guys?”

  “I—maybe?” said Harvard. “I think… yes?”

  As statements of ringing certainty went, this one left something to be desired. Still, it was more than Aiden had at the start of the night. Aiden remained in a place of dazed disbelief.

  “Welcome to the club?” Aiden hazarded. “It’s a sexy club.”

  Aiden shot Harvard Paw an incredulous look, to see if someone else was getting this. His stuffed bear had fallen over on his side. Aiden was fully in sympathy with the bear.

  When his gaze returned to Harvard, he was smiling weakly. Harvard’s wider smiles embraced everyone, but these small grins were exclusively for Aiden. “Thanks, buddy.”

  If Harvard felt better, Aiden felt better.

  Maybe…, Aiden thought through the shock, testing the thoughts out in his mind as if he were rehearsing lines for a play to see if a role felt right. Maybe this is great.

  Harvard wasn’t going to marry Stacey with the bad taste in music and settle down in a house featuring a white picket fence and two point five golden retrievers. Aiden was saved.

  “I think you know who you should talk to about this,” Aiden purred encouragingly. “Lucky for you, there’s an expert on hand.”

  “Yeah,” mumbled Harvard, and scooped up his phone from the floor.

  Aiden watched in disbelief as Harvard rang the second contact on his phone.

  “Hey, Mom. Just called to say I love you. And, uh… Do any of your friends have a son my age? Who might be interested in going on a date? With me?”

  Aiden sat down hard on their bedroom floor. He tried to have a heart attack in a cool and collected fashion.

  9: NICHOLAS

  Seiji was mad at him. That wasn’t exactly unusual, but this time it was Jesse Coste’s fault.

  Seiji had been silent coming back from the woods, then quiet all night without even uttering the normal bedtime stuff like Turn off the light immediately, Nicholas, and Don’t speak to me. He hadn’t come to breakfast this morning, even though he’d said he would, and Nicholas had saved him a seat.

  He kept remembering the moment in the dark woods when Jesse had said Seiji should go with him, and the way Seiji—who never hesitated—had hesitated. Some part of Seiji wanted to go.

  Seiji hadn’t gone. Probably because Jesse Coste was an enormous jerk. But Seiji seemed tempted by the idea of Exton and the fencing team there.

  Nicholas couldn’t really imagine a school better or fancier than Kings Row. Even when he’d got a brochure for Kings Row sent to Coach Joe’s gym, the place had looked fake to him, a school out of a book or a childhood dream. Nicholas had worried he’d get grubby fingerprints on the brochures, but now that he was there, he felt—and plenty of students acted—as though Nicholas might get grubby fingerprints over the whole school. If there was a better school, Seiji deserved to go there.

  He deserved a better fencing partner. Nicholas had figured out that when they were together, sometimes Seiji was fencing someone else, someone also fast and left-handed, but with an advanced skill that Nicholas didn’t have. Yet. He’d have it soon, if Seiji would just wait.

  Wait, and not return to Jesse.

  How were they supposed to be rivals if Seiji went to a whole other school and forgot Nicholas existed? Nicholas didn’t want him to leave. But he knew uneasily that he would be furious if he were Seiji, cut off from having what he wanted. If Exton was to Seiji what Kings Row was to Nicholas… then Nicholas shouldn’t get in his way.

  Nicholas was too dispirited to steal much of Eugene’s bacon.

  “Having a domestic, bro?” asked Eugene. “You fighting with Seiji again? Can’t help but notice he’s not here.”

  “Yeah, uh…”

  Nicholas wasn’t going to get into the whole Robert Coste is my father and his other, legitimate son was trying to lure Seiji away from the team in a limo. He’d never told anybody about Robert Coste. And it seemed like a lot to spill to Eugene over scrambled eggs. Eugene would probably focus on the Robert Coste issue, and right now Nicholas was preoccupied with Seiji.

  “I broke his watch?” Nicholas hazarded at last.

  He’d been worrying about that off and on. It seemed like basic roommate etiquette—a word from the Kings Row brochures that Nicholas didn’t know how to pronounce—not to break your roommate’s stuff. Seiji must be mad about that, too. Jesse probably wouldn’t have broken Seiji’s watch.

  “That sucks,” said Eugene. “But it’s Saturday. Wanna head to town with me and get it fixed? There’s a fancy jewelry shop where my dad got his good watch repaired.”

  “Oh, great.” Nicholas was relieved. He’d been at a loss about what he should do. He rewarded Eugene by saying, “Thanks, bro.”

  Eugene beamed. “If they can’t fix it, they can totally sell you a replacement.”

  Nicholas frowned. “I hope they can fix it. I think this watch might be kinda expensive. Reminds me of a watch a guy from my last school had, and that watch cost a hundred dollars. Can you believe any watch could cost a hundred dollars?”

  Outrage made Nicholas’s voice louder than he’d intended. Aiden, passing their table with a cup of coffee, jerked out of his reverie at the noise. He looked a bit pale and twitchy; Nicholas figured he might’ve already had too much caffeine.

  Aiden
halted beside their table and remarked, “I do find that incredibly hard to believe.”

  Even Aiden could see it was ridiculous. Nicholas nodded, feeling fully justified in his indignation.

  “Insanity, am I right?”

  There was a silence. Aiden took a thoughtful sip of his coffee.

  “Let me put this another way,” said Aiden patiently. “How much do you think the watch, which I am wearing on my wrist right now as we speak, cost?”

  “I dunno, fifty bucks?” Nicholas shrugged. “It’s pretty nice.”

  “You keep me humble, Cox,” remarked Aiden. “Of course, everyone else won’t stop telling me how amaz—blah, blah, blah, bloo.”

  Nicholas tuned out Aiden and reached for his toast.

  His day was looking up. Eugene was taking him to get Seiji’s watch fixed. Nicholas had twenty bucks. That should cover it. Seiji would be pleased. This would be simple.

  It wasn’t simple.

  Nicholas had never been to Kingstone before, but as soon as he arrived, he knew he didn’t belong there any more than he belonged at Kings Row. Nicholas and Eugene went down a broad main street flanked by white and black buildings that practically screamed We’re so fancy we pretend we live in a chess game.

  “These are bow ties.” Nicholas grimaced as he gestured to the buildings. Eugene looked puzzled. “You know, stores so tiny and expensive you’re not supposed to call them stores?”

  “Oh! You mean boutiques, bro.”

  “Yeah,” said Nicholas gloomily. “I think I do.”

  Nicholas knew at a glance, even before they went into the jewelry store, that Eugene had made a mistake.

  WEIRS FINE JEWELERS was painted in discreet green and gold above the door next to a clock surrounded by fancy black iron swirls. Even the hands on the clock had little curly black iron paddles. The two Kings Row guys who’d tried to hassle Nicholas the other day were in there, talking about “Daddy’s birthday present.”

  “Oh Lord, it’s the poors,” remarked the taller one as they came in.

  Eugene flushed.

  Nicholas did an imitation of the guy’s nasal voice. “Oh Lord, it’s the creeps who call their fathers Daddy.”