Page 145 of Because I Killed Him
I understand now why he never wanted me to meet Phillipa and why he was so angry the day I walked in on them. I didn’t realize what I was seeing at the time, but I do now.
And I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d burst through the door and said something before they ever spoke. Because what I witnessed wasn’t meant for me. It wasn’t meant for anyone.
All that power. All that pride. And still, he’s the one who’s cursed.
Moving away from the window, I press myself into the darkest, iciest corner of the balcony and pull my knees to my chest. The cold out here has claws. It cuts at my skin, slips beneath my clothes, and wedges itself between every breath. My fingers have gone stiff, and I can’t feel my toes, but I don’t dare move.
I lose track of the minutes, then the hours. My jaw clenches so tightly my molars ache. Tears freeze halfway down my cheeks, and still, I don’t risk going inside. All the while, my shock and horror harden, intensifying into fury, as if each cut on Edmund’s body were a cut into me, too. Phillipa’s face hovers in my mind, her warm, beaming smile from the day I was introduced to her. But I see now how sharp the teeth behind it are. And I hate her. I hate that she could touch her son in any way that wasn’t gentle. For a moment, I wish he were the beast she wanted him to be and that he’d struck her back.
By the time I finally move, my limbs feel foreign. I rise in slow, wooden jerks, as if my bones have frozen straight through. My knees buckle once on the way inside, where the fencing room is dark and silent. The hallway outside is empty, as are all the rooms leading to the foyer.
No one sees me leave.
Some demons never shut up. They keep hollering in your head till the day you die. Only way to quiet them is the grave… or a shot of whiskey, if you’re looking for something temporary.
—JACK CARROWAY
CHAPTER 34
Edmund doesn’t show up for class next week. I see his name on the attendance roll each morning, so it’s clear he’s joining online from his suite. Curiosity spreads through the student body, teeming with questions and wild rumors, but even Tattletale has no idea why he’s absent. People start circling Jack and Dickie—some out of concern, others out of nosiness—but the boys’ mouths stay shut like coffin lids. Charlotte asks about Edmund every morning as we walk into the first-year Lecture Hall, glancing over her shoulder as if she half-expects him to come striding around the corner.
On the third day, when our hovercar lands in the parking lot of the first-year Lecture Hall, Jack finally answers.
“Ed’s taking a vacation.”
Charlotte slides her sunglasses down and squints at him. “A vacation in his suite?”
“That’s right.” Jack shrugs as he lights her cigarette. “It’s pretty big, darling.”
“Yeah, well, so is my toilet. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna swim in it.”
Dickie, sprawled across the back seat of the hovercar, looks up from his nail file and smirks. “If Ed didn’t tell you himself, it means it’s none of your business.”
Charlotte grumbles through a cloud of smoke, still unconvinced, still curious.
I’m not. After what I heard on the balcony and saw through those iced-over windows, I’ll never be curious again. Mom’s voice loops in my head, day and night now:Prying leads to regret, if you’re lucky, and to ruin, if you’re not.
I know I was lucky Edmund didn’t spot me through the window and that I was able to slip out of his suite unnoticed. And yet, when I remember the shreds of skin hanging from his cheek and the long, winding trails of his blood on the fencing room floor, I don’t feel lucky.
At night, when I toss and turn in my sheets, unable to sleep, it’s because of the way his hands shuddered against his back, fingers straining against the force it took to keep them there. He could’ve stopped Phillipa. A single retaliatory strike, and he could’ve broken her in half. But instead, he let it happen.
I don’t know why.
In class and during training, I do my best to focus, though I only ever succeed halfway. Somewhere inside me, faint as a fingernail flick at the edge of my heart, Edmund is there, too. I think about him even when I shouldn’t, wondering if he’s healing, if he’s getting surgery, and if anyone apart from Pinkies is with him now.
I think about Rosamund, too. I recall seeing scratches on her arm during our Civilized World History lecture. Now, in the same way I know Edmund isn’t cheating on Irene, I know those wounds weren’t caused by her monkey either.
Edmund and Rosamund are both cursed. But only one of them is passing the curse on to others.
Some afternoons, I find myself drifting toward the Blue Dormitory, walking the cobbled streets with a list of excuses prepared to linger in Edmund’s doorway long enough to catch a glimpse of him and know he’s okay. But I never make it past the entrance.
I know that if it came down to it, if I had to look him in the eyes and ask how he’s doing, I wouldn’t be able to keep the truth off my face. Then he’d know I saw what happened.
I spend the next few nights alone, either in my private study, where I’ve fixed the seashells Edmund gave me to the walls like trophies, or curled on my window seat beside the box he gave me after I lied about why I quitfencing. At first, I can’t bring myself to open it. I tell myself I don’t deserve what’s inside after earning it under false pretenses. But I know Edmund. He’ll ask about the gift eventually, wondering if it’s helping me, and I’ll need an answer. So, after a few days of battling the urge to lift the lid, I carry the box to my bedroom and finally open it.
The device inside is smaller than I expected, a smooth obsidian orb about the size of a plum, with smoky tendrils curling inside like a storm trapped beneath glass. I turn it over in my hands, unsure how it works, until I get an alert on my Bond:
Device detected: Connect?
