“Yeah, okay, sure,” said Luke, rolling his eyes and leaning against the stone carapace. “So, the play’s over at last.”
Myra answered him, but Elliot could not hear over the roar of terrible realization in his mind, like a lion of revelations. He told Luke to go away so often without meaning it that now nobody could recognize when he did mean it.
“Oh my God,” Elliot said in a hollow voice. “I did this to myself. I am the boy who cried wolf.”
“There’s a wolf?” asked Luke, and his hand went to his sword.
Myra clutched his arm. “I can’t see a wolf!”
“There is no wolf!” Elliot cried.
Myra squinted. “Then why did you say there was a wolf?”
Here Elliot was, on a balcony under a starry night sky with a beautiful, kind girl who he thought liked him, and thanks to his amazing wooing skills she was poised to flee from the wolves.
“Luke, I need to talk to you inside,” he announced. “Myra, I’ll be right back, hang out here for a minute.”
“With the w—” Myra began, but Elliot had already dragged Luke inside and shut the door on her protest.
Luke looked annoyed. Elliot could hardly blame him. Elliot felt forced to do the one thing he absolutely loathed: be emotionally vulnerable.
“Here’s the thing. I like Myra,” said Elliot. “Romantically. I want to ask her out. Please go away so I can do that.”
“What?” said Luke. “Really?”
“Yes!”
Luke was clearly bewildered, and still upset by the whole play business. “I didn’t know. I didn’t think—I’ll go.”
“Please.” As Luke went down the corridor, Elliot’s heart misgave him. “Hey,” he said quietly, and Luke turned. “I wanted to say . . . since it was the first, if you wanted it to mean something, it still can. I don’t think a kiss counts, unless you want it.”
The light from the torch affixed to the wall was burning low, but it was enough to see Luke blush. “How do you know that it was . . . that I haven’t . . . I’ve kissed loads of people. Loads of times.”
“Sure,” said Elliot, letting it go.
“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” said Luke. “Just because you’re girl crazy doesn’t mean romance is everyone’s first priority. There are more important things, to some people.”
To better people than you, Luke’s tone implied.
“I’m girl crazy?” Elliot repeated. “Oh, okay.”
“Yes!” said Luke. “You only started our truce, much as you hate it, because you wanted to be with Serene. And now you forced me to be in this humiliating school play because you want to be with Myra. A play, of all the useless, ridiculous things . . .”
There were so many points to argue with in Luke’s speech that Elliot hardly knew which one to choose first.
“The play wasn’t only about Myra,” he snapped. “The play was important to me. I wanted to do something, to find something in this land that wasn’t about war. Even the stories about magic land are all about battles, and there has to be something that matters more. If there isn’t art and imagination and exploration, what are you fighting for? You must think about that. You can’t just be a clockwork soldier, swinging your sword in the direction other people want.”
“Just because I don’t like plays doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” said Luke.
“I never said you were stupid!”
“Oh, you have said I was stupid, actually,” said Luke. “Many times.”
Elliot almost said: I never meant it but bit down on the urge. Insults sometimes felt like the only protective armor he had.
“Well,” he said, instead. “I didn’t mean to force you into doing the play. I’m sorry you hated it, and I’m sorry about what Adara did.”
He didn’t have much in the way of armor. He was shivering in this stone corridor, despite Luke’s jacket. He wondered if he should offer to give it back.
“You thought it was hilarious that I hated it, and you like Adara,” Luke snapped.
That was true as well. Sometimes Elliot wished Luke was stupid.
“It doesn’t mean that I can’t be sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry for me!” said Luke.
“What do you want, then?” Elliot demanded.
Luke’s hands were in fists at his sides, his breathing harsh as the crackling of wood consumed by fire. Elliot could hardly make out Luke’s face in the low light of the dying torch, but it seemed like Luke wanted something. Elliot took a step forward, and hesitated before taking another.
“I want you to be less horrible,” Luke said slowly, and Elliot stopped moving. “If you can manage that.”
“I am trying,” Elliot exclaimed.
“Yeah, well,” said Luke. “Thanks for trying. For once.” Elliot could have hated Luke for that, for not even noticing how hard Elliot had tried the whole time Serene had been gone, but then Luke took a deep breath and cut Elliot’s hatred out from under him with an act of grace. “Good luck with Myra,” he said.
Kindness came much more naturally to Luke than it did to Elliot, but Elliot had promised himself he would keep trying.
“Thanks,” Elliot said. “And—thanks for being in the play with me.”
Luke nodded, a little awkwardly. He retreated down the corridor, and Elliot whirled around and hastily opened the balcony door. “I am so sorry I took such a long time,” he said. “I’m sure you must be cold. I swear there are no wolves out here. I am so sorry.”
Myra was standing on the balcony where he had left her. “Don’t be,” she said warmly. “I know what you were doing.”
“You do?”
Myra advanced upon him, and slipped her arms around his waist. For a moment it was like being carried away by a warm rush of joy: that something could be so lovely, and so simple. At last, Elliot thought, someone liked him. At last, it could be easy.
“I know you’ve realized how I feel about Luke,” she said.
The warm rush turned to ice. Elliot remembered how Myra had always smiled at Luke, listened to him at the lunch table, how she had looked up at Luke when she fell and he caught her.
“I know you’ve been making sure I didn’t make a fool of myself over a guy who doesn’t even like girls. I know you’ve made sure always to be with me whenever he’s around,” Myra went on. She sniffed, and burrowed her head further into Luke’s jacket, while Elliot stared down at her head in mute horror. “Thanks. You’re such a good friend.” The play was over, but in reality or fantasy, Elliot was never going to have a leading role.
The only possible response to someone telling you that they wanted to be friends, or that you were a great friend, was gratitude. Elliot had been friendless long enough that he knew friendship was a prize in itself. Myra was lovely, and thought the best of him.
She was lovely, and she didn’t love him. She had never even thought of loving him, and though she had never owed him love, though he was grateful for her friendship, Elliot could not help but be disappointed and furious at the whole world, furious at himself for being so stupid and thinking, every time, it would be his turn to be chosen.