“Everything I ever do and everything I ever say, apparently,” Elliot snapped, storming into the house. “You didn’t have to invite me here if you think I’m so unbearable.”
“I barely did,” Luke shouted back, slamming the door. “I had to, to be polite! Who wanted you here, asking people to do things and then not even watching when they do? You are the rudest person in the world. And you didn’t have to come running because of an invitation I didn’t mean, all because of Serene and your stupid idea of a stupid truce.”
“Stop calling me stupid!” Elliot yelled.
“You are stupid!” Luke yelled back. “You don’t understand anything!”
“Luke?” said Rachel from above, sounding stunned.
She was standing on the balcony that overlooked the hall, wrapped around with a bedsheet. Elliot looked up and saw the shadow of a man at her bare shoulder, and had a sudden moment of fear on top of distress: he wondered how he could possibly get Luke away without Luke seeing.
But it was Michael. Luke glanced up at his parents, threw up his hands, and walked away, making a disgusted sound in the back of his throat.
“Teenagers yell sometimes,” Rachel said, as if she was testing out the words. “Even Luke. This is normal.”
“Haha,” Elliot said. “Yep. Normal stuff. People are always yelling at me. It’s fine. I’m vexing. Go about your business. I will try to keep the vex down.”
“Okay,” said Rachel.
“That kid is a weirdo,” Elliot heard Michael mutter as Luke’s parents both walked away from the balcony and back toward their bedroom.
“I know, I’m crazy about him,” Rachel returned.
It pleased Elliot in a distant way to hear it, but it didn’t matter, not really. He kept his head high in case Rachel looked back, and he walked away, outside the Sunborn tower in the opposite direction to the one Luke had gone. He couldn’t come be Rachel’s friend. Rachel might like him, but she loved Luke. Nobody had ever loved Elliot, but he was really smart. He was smart enough to know the difference.
It was dark. The stars were out, smudges of brightness in a dark sky that seemed to be running, like streaks of white paint on a black background. Culaine whined and tried to lick the tears off Elliot’s face, but Elliot shoved him away. Good-bye to the stupid dog, good-bye to the tower and the nice, grumbling, easy, warm ways of a family. He couldn’t come back. He had been stupid, he supposed: just because he’d decided he was Luke’s friend didn’t mean that Luke was his.
“Elliot?” said Serene’s voice, behind him. Elliot jumped and scrubbed at his face with both hands, but it was a futile gesture.
Serene looked very uncomfortable, which made two of them. “What are you doing here?” Elliot snapped.
“I came looking for you,” Serene said slowly, approaching and sitting down by his side. “It was rather sad for me to be left without male company.”
It was good of her to come and sit, even awkwardly. She edged closer, and her warmth seeped through Elliot. She liked him better than anybody else did, or probably ever would, and Elliot loved her best of all.
“Uh, you do have Neal,” said Elliot. “Can’t shake him, last I checked. And plenty of other Sunborn suitors, I’m sure.”
“Ah,” Serene said. “But not the male company I prefer.”
Luke, Elliot supposed, and glanced bitterly over at her. Serene was looking at him, her face pale in the moonlight, her eyes grave. She looked remote as the moon, but she was very close.
She leaned in. His breath left him in a shocked rush, replaced by a feeling of light-headed disbelief, and the brief sweet warmth of her lips meeting his.
Serene leaned away, eyes still serious, still meeting Elliot’s without fear or wavering. She did not speak. She stood after a moment, and left his side without saying another word.
Elliot sat and stared after her slim retreating form until she disappeared into the night, then up at the stars. They were suddenly brilliant and clear.
The next morning was ungodly awkward.
Luke was very quiet, staring at his porridge with his arms crossed over his chest. Serene was also very quiet. Elliot could not tell from Luke’s face if he was upset at still having an intruder in his home, or from Serene’s face if she regretted any rash acts of pity-kissing that might have happened last night. He concentrated on being a good polite guest: he didn’t steal the little container of jam Luke had for his own porridge, even though he was used to it and the porridge tasted awful without it. He passed several excellent-guest remarks about how delicious the awful porridge was, and how nice the weather.
Everything became even more hideous because people kept stopping by the table, one of a dozen little makeshift tables out on the lawn, to congratulate Luke on his shining victory.
“Guess that Woodsinger wench is teaching you something, at that,” said Eric Sunborn, Adam and Neal’s father.
“Like my mother and my sister taught me before her,” said Luke, speaking mildly but also basically uttering treason. Sunborn women were meant to be regarded as an exception.
“Commander Woodsinger is not a wench!” snapped Elliot. “And I’m sure she’s very proficient at teaching weaponry and other terrible things.”
“How would you know, you sissy?” Neal hissed.
Elliot was about to snap back that he only had to examine the evidence—Luke was champion, and what was Neal?—but then he remembered that he couldn’t insult Sunborns while under a Sunborn roof. He bit the inside of his cheek and sulked.
Luke did not look in the least appeased by Elliot’s noble self-control. He glared at his porridge.
“Do humans call women wenches?” Serene asked. “That’s very humorous.”
Elliot jumped and stared at her. She looked just the same as ever, a beautiful enigma with no discernable thoughts about kissing.
Eric Sunborn gave Serene a squinty suspicious look and drifted away. Luke kept glaring at his porridge. Serene ate dried apricots and continued to be a lovely mystery. Elliot wanted to be back at school, very badly.
The one bright spot of the day was that Adam was sitting at another breakfast table with a broken nose.
Elliot disapproved of violence, but obviously Adam had decided to sexually harass someone else, someone who was totally okay with violence. That was what you got for having wandering hands, Elliot thought with satisfaction. Not everybody was as kind and forbearing as he was.
He beamed at Adam. Adam flinched away as if he were about to be hit again. Whoever had hit him, Elliot thought cruelly, it served Adam right.
III
Elliot, Age Fifteen