“I cannot quite describe the lucent quality of his golden hair,” said Serene. “But I did write a poem about it. It’s not very good.”
“I like, uh, his muscles,” said Luke, blushing. “And his tan. He’s getting a lot better at Trigon, too.”
“If only his heart was not as cold as he is fair,” said Serene, waving her letter. “He returned my own letter to me again, I can feel it rustling in the envelope! I don’t want to know what he’s written on it.”
She was apparently lying, because she immediately opened it, and then stared.
“Elliot,” she whispered, and Elliot looked up from his troll history. “That letter you told me to write—Golden, he wrote back! He wrote me a letter!”
Elliot glanced at the page. “I’m not sure ‘That’s more like it’ counts as a letter.”
Serene and Luke high-fived.
“Um,” said Luke. “I mean, if your advice for Serene worked—do you have any good advice for me?”
“I do. I’m glad you asked,” Elliot said seriously. “Let me tell you a secret that gets people to go out with you. Lean in. A little closer.”
Luke leaned in, his face anxious, and hopeful, and limned with gold. Elliot looked deep into his eyes.
“Ask him out,” said Elliot, and slapped Luke upside the head.
“Hey!” said Luke, not quite grinning. “Hey! You’re supposed to be a pacifist!”
“I am a stone-cold pacifist,” Elliot claimed. “That was a verbal reprimand . . . that got out of hand.”
“Do not have a catfight, boys, even if it is that time of the month,” said Serene, and when she saw them staring at her, she explained: “You know—women shed their dark feelings with their menses every month? But men, robbed of that outlet, have strange moodswings and become hysterical at a certain phase of the moon?”
There was the familiar pause of Luke and Elliot deciding to let that one go and change the subject.
“You don’t understand,” Luke told Elliot. “You don’t know what it’s like to feel about someone the way Serene and I do.”
“Does feeling have any correlation with how you’re acting?” Elliot snapped. “Because you’re both acting like idiots, and I don’t want to be an idiot like you.”
Elliot left his own damn cabin and went to the library instead of saying he knew what first love felt like. Because Luke was right: his hadn’t been fairy-tale love, storybook love. Unlike him, Serene and Luke were going to be loved back.
On the last Trigon game of the year, Elliot watched more of it than usual, because it might be his last time. It did not justify his attention, since Luke tediously won and Serene tediously cheered as usual.
Then Luke pulled his shirt off before going into the changing rooms, and Elliot jumped up and ran in after him. He found Luke already changed back into his cadet uniform.
“Take off your shirt,” Elliot ordered, clicking his fingers.
“Uh,” Luke said. “No!”
“There’s something wrong with your shoulders!”
Elliot had only seen them for a moment—he had not been looking all that much—but he knew what shoulders were supposed to look like, and it was not like that. Elliot had felt jarred seeing the shape of Luke’s shoulders change somehow, as if heat was blurring his vision, but what was blurring was not vision but flesh.
“I just strained them or something!” Luke shouted back. “They’ll stop hurting in a few days. It’s nothing to make a fuss about.”
The rest of the dressing room was staring at them. Dale had his shirt off, which was nice but not helpful. Elliot tried to think of a way to drag Luke down to the infirmary which did not involve Elliot himself going to the infirmary, where the medics were.
He couldn’t do it. Luke was probably right: Luke was probably fine. Luke was always fine.
“Luke,” said Elliot. “If they don’t. Promise me you’ll go to the infirmary over the summer.”
Luke looked convinced this was all some plot to humiliate him, but he muttered: “I promise.”
It was the best Elliot could do, when he could not ask Luke or Serene to take care of themselves in future. They had never made a fuss saying good-bye to each other: Luke and Serene were going home to their families and were always sure they would see each other again soon, and Elliot always wanted to pretend he was as secure as they were.
Elliot knew he could count on Luke to keep his word, so that was that: Luke would be taken care of, Luke and Serene were both on the path to finding love, and there was peace in the Borderlands, at least for now. Everything was settled, as much as it could be.
Time to go home.
Maybe time to stay. If he was ever going to stay, it had to be now.
His dad had always hired someone to come in and cook and clean. They never stayed long. Elliot had learned to stay out of their way, after he heard one on the phone, complaining about needy brats who gave her the creeps.
When he got home for the last summer, though, Elliot found a woman called Gemma who seemed pleased to have company. He supposed he wasn’t a potential burden anymore.
“Are you going inter-railing round Europe with those kids down the road?” she asked. “Wait, no, silly me, of course not. They’re going today, aren’t they?”
“Is it that time already?” Elliot asked, and checked his watch. “Would you excuse me for one moment?”
He dashed up the steps from the kitchen into the hall, where he found his father walking in the door, briefcase in hand.
“Would you like to get rid of me all summer?” Elliot demanded. “Then give me some money now.”
His father looked at him, then fished inside his suit jacket for his wallet.
So it was that when Tom and Susan Whatevertheirsurnamewas, who had occasionally been set up on awkward you-live-on-the-same-road playdates with Elliot between the ages of five and twelve, arrived at the platform for the train for London, Elliot was waiting for them.
“Great news!” Elliot declared. He looked them over: Tom’s glasses didn’t suit him, Susan’s hairband matched her shirt, and he felt he was caught up on them. “My dad says I can come inter-railing with you.”
“But we didn’t—” began Tom.
“But we haven’t seen you in y—” began Susan.
Elliot fixed them with a brilliant expectant gaze. He’d found that usually burned away all but the words people were absolutely certain they wanted to say.
Tom and Susan sagged, clearly not having enough conviction to follow through.
Elliot beamed. “We’re going to have so much fun, guys.”
V
Elliot, Age Seventeen
Inter-railing was fun: they soon formed a group of people the same age as they were, the group losing and finding new members at every train station but with a few people there for the long haul. Tom and Susan were still wary of Elliot on account of thinking he was pure mental, but herd mentality kicked in: they did not want to be left out. Elliot’s favorite member of the group, though, was a Greek girl called Pinelopi who was traveling on her own because she loved adventure.