After Eden (8 page)

He leaned on the windowsill and gazed down into the backyard. A cool wind was blowing in from the Atlantic. Miranda had hung out the washing, and the sheets billowed and snapped on the clothesline like sails.

“Choose a seat,” I said.

As well as the single bed, there was a desk with a chair,
an armchair with a reading light, and a beanbag chair on the floor. Plenty of options.

Ryan chose the bed. He leaned back against the headboard.

“Sorry about the interrogation,” I said, sitting next to him.

“They seem nice.” He picked up a small framed photo from my bedside table. “Are these your parents?”

I nodded. It was my favorite photo of the three of us. We were standing in the backyard on a sunny day. My mother was wearing a pair of thin rectangular sunglasses, and her bright red hair, which fell almost to her waist, gleamed like copper. My dad, tall with wavy brown hair, was grinning at the photographer. I was in between them, my darker auburn hair tied into two neat little plaits, squinting through the sun.

“Your mother is beautiful,” said Ryan. “You look like her.”

It was a sweet thing to say. My mother was beautiful but we didn’t look alike. Nor were we alike in personality. She was as vibrant and confident as the color of her hair and, according to Miranda, was as reckless as I was cautious. My mother had jumped out of an airplane for charity when she was twelve and had once been rescued by the coast guard when her rubber dinghy floated more than a mile out to sea as she slept. Although Miranda had never said so, I was certain she would have been one of the kids jumping off the harbor wall as a teenager. The most reckless thing she’d done, however, was drop out of school at the age of sixteen when she’d discovered she was pregnant with me. Against everyone’s advice she had married my dad, who was only seventeen himself.

Ryan put the photo back on the bedside table and turned his attention to the books piled up next to my bed. “You’ve been working on Shakespeare.”

I nodded. “English is one of my first exams. I have a list of review topics for Shakespeare.”

“Let’s hear them.”

I shuffled through a file of papers. “Who is most responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet?”

“The apothecary?” suggested Ryan. “He sold Romeo the poison.”

“I think that Shakespeare is the most responsible.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “Because he wrote the play?”

I shook my head. “Shakespeare spells out what will happen in the play at the beginning, in the prologue. The chorus tells the audience that a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life. I think that he means that their future was already written. It didn’t matter what they did, or what anyone else did, they were destined to take their lives. I guess I’m talking about Fate.”

“You could be right. Romeo and Juliet frequently see omens that suggest their fate.”

“Evidence, please, Mr. Westland,” I said, mocking Mr. Kennedy, our English teacher.

Ryan lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “Just before going to Capulet’s ball, Romeo has a premonition that things will end badly—’my mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars,’” he said quietly, his eyes still gazing at the ceiling as though the words were written there. “‘Shall bitterly begin his fearful date with this night’s
revels, and expire the term of a despised life, closed in my breast, by some vile forfeit of untimely death.’”

“I take it you studied this play back in New Hampshire?”

Ryan nodded.

“It seems they teach literature more thoroughly than they teach history.”

“That was a backhanded compliment,” he said, swatting my thigh with a copy of
Romeo and Juliet
. “So, Miss Anfield, how does Shakespeare explore the theme of Fate in his plays?”

“That’s a massive question,” I said, groaning. “You’ll have to narrow it down a bit.”

“In
Macbeth
, is Macbeth the victim of Fate or his own ambition?”

“Macbeth believed in Fate. But he also tried to prevent Fate from determining his destiny. Like when he tried to kill Banquo’s sons. But the prophecies all came true.”

“Forget Shakespeare. Do you believe in Fate?”

“No. I believe we make our own destiny. I hate the idea of Fate. It’s a cop-out. It stops people from taking responsibility for their actions. I think that, until we make a choice, the possibilities are infinite.”

Like the choices I was faced with now. He was lying on my bed; I was sitting next to him, mere inches separating us. I could stay where I was, and ask him what he thought about Fate. Keep it friendly and platonic. Or lean over impulsively and kiss him.

“And once you’ve made a choice?”

“All the other possibilities disappear.”

Ryan sat up, leaned toward me, and gently placed one hand on my arm. “So imagine this,” he said, a mischievous twinkle in his voice. “Imagine you travel back to the Victorian period. And imagine you walk in on your great-grandfather meeting your great-grandmother. Would you look at them and think that their possibilities were infinite? Or would you think that Fate had already determined their future? That they were bound to make choices that would eventually lead to you being born?”

I hesitated, thinking through his question. Downstairs, I heard the ring of the doorbell and registered vaguely that Connor and Megan had arrived. “I don’t know about that,” I said eventually. “That’s different. And ridiculous.”

“Humor me. Imagine that you were able to prevent them from meeting at all?”

“I don’t suppose I
could
do that,” I said. “Because if I prevented them from meeting, then I would never be born, in which case I would be unable to travel back in time and prevent them meeting.”

Ryan grinned. “And there’s the paradox.”

I smiled back. “Do
you
believe in Fate?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Ask me in a hundred years.”

A herd of elephants stampeded up the stairs and my door swung open. Connor came in first, with Megan right behind him. Ryan removed his hand from my arm. Connor was all smiles until he saw Ryan sitting on my bed.

“Great,” he said. “You’re here.”

Connor sat in the armchair and pulled a physics textbook out of his backpack. “Let’s warm up with some science, shall we?” he said.

“We’ve already warmed up,” I said.

Connor looked at Ryan and then at me. “Bet you have.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

Connor shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll test you.”

Science—physics in particular—was his strongest subject and I suspected he chose this so that he could spar with Ryan in some silly intellectual showdown. Ryan answered every question Connor threw his way, in detail, a bored expression on his face.

“If you already know all the answers,” Connor said eventually, “why don’t you go home?”

“Connor!” I said.

“It’s okay,” Ryan said, standing up. “I’m quite good at science. Not so good at twentieth-century history. Let me know the next time you plan to study that and I’ll come along.”

He picked up his backpack and I walked him to the front door.

“Wish you wouldn’t go,” I said.

Ryan shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t want to, but Connor is going to be a jerk if I stay.”

“I’ll tell him to leave.”

Ryan shook his head. “Don’t do that. Study with him. Maybe you and I could spend some time together tomorrow?”

My heart literally skipped a beat and I held on to the door frame to steady myself. “Let me give you my number.”
I picked up a marker from the phone table in the hall.

“Do you have a scrap of paper in your backpack?” I asked.

Ryan held out his hand. “Just write it on the back of my hand.”

His hand in my hand felt warm and almost too intimate. I dragged the pen across his skin, taking care to make the numbers clear.

Ryan read the numbers back to me. “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he said with a smile.

Back upstairs, Connor and Megan were tucking into cookies and juice. Megan smiled sympathetically as I walked in.

“What was that all about?” I asked Connor.

He shrugged. “He’s such an asshole. Why come to a study session if you don’t need to study?”

“He didn’t know we were going to be studying science,” I said. “You chose the subject.”

“He just came to show off.”

“No. You tried to show off and it backfired.”

“Why did you invite him anyway? You know how I feel about him!”

“No, I don’t know how you feel about him, although it’s become quite clear this afternoon. What’s your problem with Ryan?”

“He flirts with everyone. And it’s just irritating to see you fawning over him like every other girl in our year.”

“I don’t fawn over him,” I said.

“Yes, you do. And then I come over today and he’s lying on your bed.”

“He doesn’t flirt with me,” said Megan.

“He flirts with most girls,” said Connor irritably.

“But not fat girls,” said Megan.

“You’re not fat,” I said.

Megan laughed soundlessly and reached for another cookie. “I’m just big-boned.”

Connor ignored her and glowered at me. “Are you going to the ball with him?”

“No.” I glared back at him.

“You said no?” His tone was disbelieving with the faintest flicker of a smile.

“I didn’t have to. He hasn’t asked me.”

Connor looked confused. “But Friday, at the end of the day, I thought …”

“You thought wrong. Ryan hasn’t asked me to the ball. Which is fine. Because I’m not going anyway.”

Both Connor and Megan looked at me.

“You have to go,” said Megan. “Everyone goes to the leavers’ ball.”

“It’s a rite of passage,” said Connor.

“I’m not going,” I said. “But since you two obviously feel so strongly about it, why don’t you go together?”

Connor and Megan had been gone for nearly an hour when I noticed Ryan’s black jacket hanging on the back of my bedroom door. I ran my fingers down the material. Impulsively, I pulled the jacket down off the hook and buried my face in it, breathing in the scent of him through the fabric.

“Eden!”

I stuffed the jacket into my backpack and picked up the tray of glasses just as Miranda poked her head around my bedroom door.

“Ryan left early,” she said.

“Ryan and Connor don’t get along very well. He thought it would be better if he left.”

Miranda raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Travis and I are going to walk to the store to pick up some milk. Won’t be long.”

She took the tray from me.

“Actually, I’m going to go out too,” I said. “Ryan left his jacket behind. I need to return it.”

“Fine. Wrap up warm. The wind is cold.”

* * *

My eyes stung as the wind blasted against my face. I blinked and marched on, keeping my head down. The wind’s sharp teeth ripped through my thin clothing. Despite Miranda’s warning, I hadn’t dressed for the weather; I’d stayed in the tight blue top I’d worn earlier, the thin one that hugged my body and made me look like I had curves. I’d combed my hair again, touched up my makeup, and sprayed perfume behind my ears.

It was pointless. Standing in front of his door, I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to sort out the unruly tangle of curls. My heart thudded harder in my chest. Would Cassie be there? What was his dad like? Why had it never occurred to me to ask about his mother? Just as I was about to knock, Ryan opened the door, catching me with my fingers knotted in my hair.

“Eden! What are you doing here?”

I had the horrible feeling he wasn’t pleased to see me.

I unzipped my backpack and pulled out his jacket. “You left this,” I said. “I thought you might need it.”

Ryan stood aside to let me in. “Looks like you could use a jacket yourself. Come inside.”

“I should go.”

“No. Come in.”

He smiled and my nervousness evaporated.

I followed him through the hall and into a room on the right. Heat blazed out of a fireplace in the opposite wall.

“Warm yourself by the fire,” he said. “I’ll make us hot drinks. What would you like?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

I crouched in front of the fireplace, rubbing my hands together. Once I could feel them again, I took a look around the room. The walls were covered in a pink florid wallpaper that had yellowed in places and was smoke-stained around the old fireplace. The carpet was bottle green and textured, the sort of flooring that looked like it belonged more in a shabby hotel than a modern home. But the sofa was modern and looked brand new. There was a large plasma-screen TV hanging in the alcove next to the fireplace. The only other items of furniture were a bookcase stuffed full of books and a coffee table. There were no family photographs or ornaments, no pictures or plants or games or rugs. Functional, with a hint of grandma.

I went over to look at the bookcase. You can tell a lot about people from the books they read. There was the complete works of Shakespeare, and poetry by Ben Jonson and John Donne. I noticed the usual nineteenth-century novelists: Austen, the Brontës, Thackeray, Dickens, and Hardy.
The Rough Guide to Britain
. A range of cookbooks. A guide to popular culture in Britain. Late twentieth-century fashion. World atlases and basic science textbooks. Biographies of Darwin and Einstein. All the books were well thumbed. Nothing pretentious or phony about this book collection.

I sat on the couch. Ryan’s backpack was on the floor, unzipped, a pile of books on the floor beside it. I glanced at the title on top.
A History of Twentieth-Century Britain
.

The door swung open and Ryan came in with two mugs of hot chocolate. He put them on the coffee table and
sat next to me on the couch. I’d imagined Ryan as a strong-black-coffee kind of boy, not someone who would make hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.

Although he had left a few centimeters of space between us, I felt suddenly conscious of his closeness; it was as though little electrical currents were running between his skin and mine.

“Where’s your dad?” I asked.

“Out. Cassie’s out as well.” He raised an eyebrow. “We have the whole place to ourselves.”