Fence

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  Bobby noticed Seiji was there and stopped doing his happy dance. Nicholas was left doing a happy dance by himself, which must have looked kinda dumb. Bobby was never subdued except when he was around Seiji, because Bobby was so wowed by Seiji’s fencing prowess. He went quiet and blushed whenever Seiji spoke to him. Nicholas understood the feeling but thought Bobby should get it together. The weird silences were making Seiji believe that Bobby disliked him, and Nicholas wanted them all to be awesome friends.

  “Hi, Seiji.” Bobby pulled on his ribbon and went red. “I didn’t see you there. I mean, not that you’re easy to overlook! You’re very… striking.…”

  Seiji obviously didn’t know what to do about being called “very striking.” He stood with his back held stiffly to the paneled wall. Nicholas was pretty sure this particular aloof stare from Seiji meant he was feeling awkward.

  “Sorry we were so loud!” Bobby added. “I know you hate that.”

  Nicholas made a rude noise. “Whatever! I’m gonna be loud about the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me, next to coming to Kings Row and winning our match against MLC.”

  If he learned amazing tricks at Camp Menton, there would be even more victorious matches in his future. Coach Williams thought this camp might be their key to winning at state.

  Nicholas could tell Seiji was happy about France, too. He was looking at Nicholas, and there was a faint curl of satisfaction to Seiji’s mouth that might have been a smile on someone else.

  “It’s good that you’re pleased,” Seiji said decisively.

  Bobby was smiling, too. Unlike Seiji, Bobby’s smiles were unmistakable, bright as his ribbons and earrings. “Dante, you’ll come, too, right?”

  In some surprise, Nicholas turned to the taller boy. Dante Rossi nodded in Bobby’s direction, then returned Nicholas’s look impassively. Dante’s face was neutral. It usually was.

  “I thought you didn’t like fencing?” Nicholas asked.

  He wasn’t sure why anyone would feel that way, but he’d absorbed that Dante did.

  Dante nodded again.

  “Then, uh…,” said Nicholas. “Not that we’re not glad to have you, but why would you come?”

  Dante’s gaze drifted over to the turquoise beacon of Bobby’s ribbon. Nicholas wondered why Dante was looking at Bobby, then realized he must want Bobby to answer for him. Dante and Bobby were roommates and the type of best friends who did everything together.

  “Dante has family in Italy, so he can have fun with them,” Bobby explained.

  “Uh, but we’re going to France,” Nicholas pointed out.

  “The town the camp’s based near, Menton, is on the border between France and Italy. It’s a half hour drive to get to Italy and this city called Ventimiglia, where Dante’s cousins live.” Bobby gave Dante an affectionate look. “So he can visit them and be at the camp to hang out. And he can even watch the fencing! He’s actually getting way more into fencing.”

  Bobby’s back was turned to Dante. Bobby didn’t see Dante slowly but vehemently shaking his head, his wavy dark hair tumbling every which way. He didn’t argue with Bobby’s statement, though. Dante was a guy of few words.

  “Dante and I always have fun when we travel together. When we pack,” said Bobby, “we always keep space in both suitcases to bring back many cheeses! Dante loves cheese.”

  This time Dante nodded. A terrible realization descended upon Nicholas.

  “Oh my God,” said Nicholas. “Can’t stay here chatting, guys. Gotta go! Seiji, I have to pack for France. Seiji, what should I bring to France?”

  “Clothes,” Seiji said flatly.

  Nicholas was already dragging Seiji back to their dormitory. Nicholas had read somewhere that French people were into fashion. Bobby would fit right in, but Nicholas didn’t own any fancy clothes. He did have a lot of black T-shirts. Maybe those would work? Black was cool, right?

  Nicholas tossed the question over his shoulder as he barreled through the door to their room, number 108. “Do people wear a lot of black in France?”

  Seiji pulled his wrist out of Nicholas’s grasp. “I never noticed.”

  The morning sunlight was pouring with equal brightness into both halves of their dorm room, Seiji’s half with a neatly made bed and alphabetized books, while Nicholas’s half contained a colony of socks under his bed. Nicholas knew Harvard and Aiden pushed their beds together so that they could watch movies and chat. He didn’t think Seiji would ever go for that, since Seiji insisted that the duck-patterned shower curtain they’d hung up in the middle of their room must stay there for the preservation of his sanity.

  Nicholas paused halfway toward the duck curtain, arrested by a sudden thought.

  “This is so nice of your dad,” he told Seiji. “What made him think of doing this?”

  “I don’t know, Nicholas,” Seiji snapped. “How should I know? I wouldn’t, because I haven’t spoken to him recently. He gets wild ideas all the time. It was a strange whim of his, I expect. Maybe he’s regretting it now.”

  Nicholas shrugged. “Well, I think it was great of him. Your dad seems really cool.”

  “He’s a well-respected businessman,” said Seiji, but he had that faintly pleased look on his face again.

  Sometimes Seiji got testy about his parents. Nicholas wasn’t sure why. With the way Seiji spoke about them, it was as if he worried he was disappointing them, but obviously nobody could be disappointed in Seiji.

  Maybe it was just that the Katayamas were occupied with running their car-making empire, and they didn’t get the chance to spend a lot of time with Seiji. That must be sad for their whole family.

  “Say thanks to him from me,” Nicholas said. “I mean, not that he’ll know who I am. But, like, from a teammate of yours? Since that’s what I am? Let him know I wanna say thanks.”

  If it wasn’t for Seiji’s dad, there was no way Nicholas could’ve ever dreamed of going to Camp Menton. Mr. Katayama didn’t realize what he’d done, didn’t know how much it meant, but he’d given Nicholas a better chance of winning at state.

  Seiji said distantly, “He knows who you are.”

  Truly this was a great day. Nicholas brightened further. “Yeah?”

  He was Seiji’s roommate, and they fenced and spent a lot of time together. It made sense that Seiji might have mentioned his name, even if he was just listing off his team members.

  “I constantly tell him how terrible you are at fencing.”

  “Wow, Seiji!” Nicholas grumbled. “Thanks for nothing. Next time you mention me, could you tell him that I’m really improving?”

  “I might if you actually were,” said Seiji, so Nicholas was forced to go over and shove him.

  It was cool to think that Seiji’s dad was somewhat aware of Nicholas having a place in Seiji’s life, that Seiji’s dad might even remember Nicholas’s name from phone calls with his son. Nicholas didn’t really understand how it was with dads. Nicholas would have given a lot for his dad to call him, but his dad never would. He didn’t know Nicholas existed.

  Nicholas had asked often about who and where his dad was when he was small, but his mom hadn’t told him for years. So Nicholas had made up a bunch of cool little-kid stories, like that his dad was totally awesome but super busy with important stuff, which was why he couldn’t see Nicholas.

  He’d always thought, really, that those were just dreams. It had been a shock to find out they were true. To find out his dad was Robert Coste, the finest fencer of his generation, who had long ago attended Kings Row just as Nicholas was now. Robert Coste, who had once won Olympic gold. Nicholas had hunted down a newspaper with an article about Robert Coste’s victory at the Olympics and cut it out to keep. The picture was grainy and blurred, with Robert’s golden hair blending with the gold of his trophy, but it was the only physical picture of his dad Nicholas owned. That was okay. It was the most important picture possible, because it showed the amazing thing his dad had accomplished.

  Robert Coste didn’t know a
bout him, and Nicholas didn’t want him to. Not yet. Nicholas wasn’t as skilled a fencer as his dad had been. He had to train more and learn better. People had called Nicholas “Zero” after a fencing match gone wrong, and he couldn’t have Robert Coste thinking of him as a zero. Nicholas didn’t want his dad to be disappointed in him when they finally met.

  After all, Nicholas had competition: Robert Coste’s other son. Jesse Coste, who had inherited his father’s golden hair and shining fencing talent. Jesse, who had been Seiji’s fencing partner for years, and whom Seiji hardly ever talked about. Yet whenever anyone mentioned Jesse, or on the thankfully few occasions when they’d encountered Jesse, all the muscles in Seiji’s face had gone rigid as though he was in pain.

  Nicholas was dreading the day Seiji found out about Nicholas’s connection to Jesse Coste. He knew Seiji hated being reminded of him. And it was tough whenever Nicholas considered the fact that he was competing with Jesse not only for Robert’s attention, but for Seiji’s as well. Seiji wanted a rival with real skill, the type Jesse possessed. Sometimes when Seiji fenced Nicholas, it felt as if Seiji were looking through Nicholas to another fencer who had Nicholas’s speed and Nicholas’s left-handedness, but who was polished like a trophy. A better version of Nicholas. He didn’t want his dad to see him that way.

  Jesse had Nicholas’s dad. But Nicholas had Jesse’s fencing partner. Seiji went to Kings Row with Nicholas, not Jesse’s stupid Exton, and he trained with Nicholas every day.

  So Nicholas thought he could wait to meet his dad until he was officially Seiji’s rival. Once Nicholas was a great fencer, Seiji wouldn’t mind Nicholas being related to Jesse, because Jesse wouldn’t matter to him anymore. Nicholas would be enough. His dad would be proud of him then.

  Maybe if Nicholas excelled at Camp Menton, and Kings Row won the state championship. Maybe if he accomplished that, he could tell his dad who he was.

  Nicholas planned to sneak his newspaper clipping of Robert Coste into his suitcase when Seiji wasn’t looking. He couldn’t go to France without his lucky charm.

  6 AIDEN

  Wow, that had been a lot of horrible joy from freshmen too early in the morning. Being excited about going to France was so gauche. Did people not understand Aiden was tired?

  “Leave me out of the team meetings next time,” said Aiden, sighing as he rose to his feet. “Not sure I have the constitution to bear Nicholas Cox’s haircut before breakfast.”

  “Aiden, do you remember what I talked to you about?” asked Coach Williams in her most ultra-solemn voice.

  He had a dim recollection. She’d been using the ultra-solemn voice then, too.

  “Not really,” Aiden drawled. “Wasn’t listening then, won’t listen now.”

  He shut the door of the coach’s office. As he made his way down the hall, his phone buzzed in his pocket, but when he slid it out of his uniform pants, it wasn’t a guy trying to make a date. It was Rosina, the woman who’d almost been one of his many stepmothers, the one he’d loved. She wanted to reconnect, and Aiden had thought for a passing moment that he’d like to.

  Not anymore. Even Harvard, the person who knew Aiden best, found the idea of getting closer to him to be the worst thing he could imagine. So Aiden already knew how reconnecting would end. Better for Rosina to be a little disappointed now than a lot disappointed later. This way, Aiden wouldn’t have to watch her be disappointed.

  He silenced his phone and put it back in his pocket without reading the message. The world was worryingly fuzzy around the edges, and his jaw was aching from clenching it too hard, but Aiden congratulated himself on a personal victory. He’d been in the same room as Harvard and hadn’t looked at him more than three times, and now he’d escaped.

  “Aiden!” called Harvard’s voice behind him.

  Aiden never got lucky. Aside from in the obvious sense.

  “Hey.” Aiden refused to pick up the pace on his sauntering stride. That would look like running away. “You go ahead to breakfast. I’m not hungry.”

  “Great,” said Harvard. “Me neither. I want to talk.”

  “But I’m starving to death,” protested Aiden as Harvard took hold of his elbow and piloted him down the brick walkway running along the quad, back to the dormitory.

  Once again, Aiden’s stupid body betrayed him, every cell too aware of Harvard’s hand—on his arm, for God’s sake. The cells were all in a rush of warm approval. Yes, go with Harvard; yes, do whatever Harvard wants, yes.

  He hadn’t been back to their room in… It had been a while. Harvard had made both beds. Aiden strolled over to the bedside and lay down across them, hoping this looked more like lounging than a collapse. His teddy bear, Harvard Paw, was tilting dangerously off the side of the bed. Aiden viciously crushed the urge to rescue the bear. He wasn’t that little kid anymore, clutching his toy, trailing after Harvard in helpless adoration. He refused to be.

  He closed his eyes. Oh, he was so tired. Maybe, if Harvard was here but didn’t talk to him and wasn’t in the bed, maybe Aiden could sleep.

  “Could you open your eyes and look at me?” Harvard asked.

  Aiden’s eyes opened without his consciously willing it. Damn his idiot, treacherous body. Harvard was standing a careful distance from the bed. He didn’t look wrecked, the way Aiden was. He looked like he always did, tall and strong, broader across the shoulders than the average fencer but able to walk softer than anyone, his black hair cropped close and his brown eyes the kindest in the world. He looked like everything Aiden had ever wanted in his whole life.

  “Hey, Aiden,” Harvard said in the gentle voice Aiden loved best. “Listen to me for a minute.”

  “Nah,” Aiden responded. “I think I can guess what’s going on. Coach told you to make sure your teammate fell in line, and you said, Yes, Coach, like a good little captain. But I’m gonna pass. Getting lectured seems like a buzzkill. Life’s too short to do things I don’t want to do.”

  “Is there anything you do want to do?” Harvard snapped.

  “Hmm. I don’t know,” Aiden drawled. “Want to make out?”

  Something flickered in Harvard’s eyes, turning the gold in them dark. For a shocked, dizzy, delirious moment, Aiden thought Harvard might say yes. Then Harvard’s mouth twisted, and Aiden realized the emotion darkening his eyes was disgust.

  “I—what?” said Harvard, clearly at a loss faced with Aiden’s revolting offer. “No.”

  Aiden smirked to show he didn’t care at all. “Didn’t think so.”

  Harvard sighed as if he found Aiden exasperating. Aiden had always believed it was fond exasperation, but maybe he was wrong.

  “Yeah, Coach asked me to talk to you. She was concerned about your behavior. I am, too.”

  “Why?” asked Aiden.

  Harvard frowned. “You just don’t seem yourself.”

  Aiden laughed and made it convincing. “I’ve been messing around with a lot of guys, neglecting my fencing, and generally having a good time. How is that not like me?”

  Harvard had no answer for that, Aiden saw to his bitter satisfaction. Aiden was simply living down to everyone’s expectations. The only thing that was different was that now Aiden had crushed out the last remnant of the little kid that trailed Harvard everywhere; that idiot who still hoped.

  “I’ve always been a jackass,” purred Aiden. “Nothing’s changed. Isn’t that what you wanted? For nothing to change?”

  He had to get up off this bed and out of this room. He couldn’t stand to be around Harvard, yet he felt like he couldn’t bear to leave. That was why he had to go now.

  Aiden decided he couldn’t wait to go to France. Surely there would be many opportunities for oblivion there. He just wished he could also take a vacation from himself.

  “Hey, bud. What’s going on with you?” Harvard asked at last, his voice strained with the effort of being casual. “Let me help.”

  Okay, bro, be a pal and fall in love with me, Aiden snarled in his head. Only, Harvard had already made i
t perfectly clear he didn’t want to do that.

  “For the last time, there’s nothing going on with me. I just like to have fun, Harvard.” Aiden could almost see his own voice on the air, gleaming and cutting like razor wire. “I know the concept must be terribly confusing for you. Since you’re no fun at all.”

  7 HARVARD

  Harvard forced himself not to flinch. It was nothing he didn’t already know, and it made sense that Aiden felt that way. Aiden had flings with heirs to Swiss banking fortunes and nights on the town with minor royalty. Harvard’s parents were well-off, but Aiden’s dad had stratospheric money, and that meant Aiden had access to all the most glittering and expensive entertainments in the world. Aiden clearly regarded their weekend trip to France as forgettable and pedestrian. Harvard himself was as exciting as Aiden’s old teddy bear.

  Aiden had wasted enough time with Harvard already.

  “Sure, I get it,” said Harvard. “Have as much fun as you want.”

  “Thanks for your permission, bud,” Aiden returned. He spoke in the light way he always spoke, like the sound of silver bells, but there was a note underneath that sounded like steel.

  It made Harvard uneasy, but what else could he do? He wasn’t ever going to cramp Aiden’s style. That was the whole point. No matter what Harvard wanted for himself, he couldn’t be selfish.

  Not even if Aiden was going to roll around on their bed, his honey-colored hair spilling across newly rumpled sheets, and murmur in his honey-smooth voice, Want to make out? Harvard had to dismiss the warm, lurching impulse to surrender and go over there. He had to sternly banish the memory of when Harvard had made his fatal error. How he’d kissed Aiden, at their door, on their bed, and hadn’t wanted to stop. Things like that didn’t mean to Aiden what they meant to Harvard. Things like that didn’t mean anything to Aiden at all.

  You’ve always been the only one who could talk sense into him, Coach had said. Surely, they still had that between them: that Aiden would trust what Harvard told him, and know Harvard was saying it for Aiden’s own good. If they didn’t have that, maybe they didn’t have anything at all.