Page 93 of Proof By Contradiction
‘Femi. Don’t.’
‘The mystery guy… it’s him, isn’t it?’ Now he stops. Turns. His eyes on mine, sad and certain. ‘Haldrey.’
The name spoken by him is a different thing from the name in my head. For me it’s heat, hands, how the vowels sound when they’re coming apart. In Femi’s, it’s a faculty listing: a power imbalance, a safeguarding issue.
‘I’m not going to tell anyone.’ He says it first before I can beg. ‘But this is dangerous, Ewan. For both of you. You know that.’
I know it like the edge of a cliff, you’re still running towards.
‘He’s not, it’s not what you think.’
‘What do I think?’
Silence is an answer enough. Because what Femi thinks and what’s happening might be closer than I want to admit, and the gap betweenit’s not like thatandit’s exactly like thatis the width of a photo in a bathroom cabinet.
The worst part: he’s not angry. Anger, I could fight.
‘Please,’ he says.
He walks away into the crowd. The rain. The campus that contains all the evidence and all the risk and all the reasons this was always going to collapse.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The phone rings at half eight on a Friday. Bad, because Ronan doesn’t ring on Fridays. Sunday is the routine. He confirms I’m alive. I confirm I’m fine. Mutual fiction. Friday means the pattern’s broken.
‘Which library, exactly?’
No hello, no warm-up. Ron’s voice was flat and guarded.
‘What?’
‘The library. The one you’re always at. Because I checked online, your university account, the one Mum set up, and your library card shows three visits this entire term.’
Three. Out of what I’ve claimed to be, conservatively, forty. My stomach drops through the mattress.
‘You checked my library account?’
‘You gave me the login. Christmas. When you couldn’t remember your student number.’ His voice doesn’t waver. ‘Three visits, Ewan. You told me last week you were at the library every evening.’
‘I study in other places. Coffee shops. Different places.’
‘Don’t.’
Silence. His breathing on the line. Mine held.
‘Stop checking on me. I’m eighteen, not a child.’
‘Then stop lying to me.’
The calm is the worst part. If he shouted, I could shout back. But Ron’s calm is a wall I’ve never found a way around.
‘You know… I’m seeing someone.’ Out before I’ve decided to say it. Teeth clenched on the rest. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Who? Since you’re lying for them.’
‘Someone.’
‘Why the secrecy? You’ve never hidden anything from me, Ewan.’ A pause. ‘You don’t hide. You’ve never hidden. So whatever this is?—’
