c h a p t e r t w e n t y
*
Las Vegas during the day is a strange experience. It's strange enough to wake up in a proper bed, still wearing yesterday's clothes, and it's bewildering to step out into a still-bright city that never turned off its lights. Everything is still glaring, the neon lights a strange shade of tragic as five of us head out for breakfast.
At some point while I was sleeping, Sam eventually made good on his word and added all of us to a group chat. It's weird to see everyone's names and profiles. This morning, Carrie and Adedayo – or rather, Caroline Grace Dearn and Ade Eze – messaged to say that they'll be doing their own thing today. Considering Young-mi stayed with the twins last night, I'm fairly certain Carrie and Adedayo are hooking up.
The next message came from Brannan O'Neill, who is meeting up with an old friend and won't be around, followed by Sam, as Sam U. L. Jackson, letting us know that he's doing admin today.
The rest of us find our way to an IHOP and order a small mountain of pancakes.
"So," Klara says, conspiratorially meeting my eye as she tucks her hair behind her ear so I can see both pairs of earrings, "what are you guys going to do today?"
Arjun looks at me. I shrug. He does too. "We're not sure," he says. "The city's reputation is pretty ageist."
"I was here years ago," Kristin says, "when I was still a teenager. There's a really cool outdoor neon museum, and fake Paris. Oh, and the tower at the end of the strip has rides at the top!"
That has me shaking my head, saying, "No, no, no. I don't do rides." The thought alone makes me feel queasy. "I can barely walk straight as it is, without adding a rollercoaster to the mix."
Arjun laughs. "Ok, no rollercoasters. I'm not a fan anyway."
"To be honest, if I were you, I would walk down the strip, see the sights, and then go back to the hotel pool," Klara says, stealing a bite of her sister's maple bacon. "It's hot out there, and I don't know if we'll have a pool again."
The thought of lying in the pool is an enticing one. I mull it over as I eat my Mexican Tres Leches pancakes, before I ask, "What're you doing today?"
Young-mi claps and grins when she says, "Outlets."
"Huh?" My mind goes to plug sockets.
"They have some amazing outlet malls here. Huge discounts; awesome shopping," Klara says. "The three of us are going to go there after breakfast, and you're more than welcome to join."
My nose wrinkles at the thought of trawling round shops in this weather. I hate shopping and I struggle with heat, so shopping when it's at least thirty degrees outside is a big no.
"That face is answer enough." Kristin laughs. "You're very expressive."
I clock the disgust on my face and try to tame it back to normality. "Sorry. Uh, yeah, I don't do shopping. But you guys have fun, snap up those bargains." I absent-mindedly snap my fingers, my mind on my food, to a chorus of laughter. "If anyone wants me, I'll be by the pool."
"I'll be there," Arjun says, and with a grin, he sticks out a dark brown arm and adds, "Gotta work on this tan."
*
I ate too much. The IHOP portions are ridiculous, even by American standards, and it was ambitious to think I could polish off four of their pancakes as well as a sweet, creamy coffee. The buzz from the caffeine can't compete with the sluggish tiredness that comes from overeating, and it's near torture to drag myself out of the restaurant only to be accosted by the kind of heat I can only describe as disgusting.
Arjun fans his face with the trip schedule and checks his map, the two of us pressed against the building to avoid being twatty tourists who block the pavement.
"Ok," he says at last, "I reckon the neon museum will be really cool, but definitely better at night. We could check that out later."
"Mmm."
"We could definitely head to fake Paris if you want to get a coffee in a French-style cafe," he says, though I can tell from his tone that he's not that interested, "or we could stock up on drinks and donuts from Dunkin', and head back to the pool."
"I like that. No offence to Kristin's suggestions, of course."
"Klara's," Arjun corrects. I suppress a grin and toy with whether or not to tell him. I feel like he and I are a team, and I don't want him to look like a fool just because Klara's a prankster.
"Kristin's," I counter-correct. "Kristin suggested the museum; Klara suggested the pool."
He frowns, about to shake his head. I jump in before he can say anything.
"Klara's a trickster," I say. "The whole time we were playing fuck, marry, kill, it was her. Not Kristin. Klara pretends to be Kristin. She told me yesterday."
"Shit. Have I been wrong this whole time?"
"I think she got you, hook, line and sinker," I say, attempting an apologetic grimace.
"But ... Klara's taller, right?"
I shake my head.
"Damn. God, that is really awkward. Oh, god, and I was so confident. I'm so embarrassed." He pulls a face and adjusts his glasses. "Time to drown my mortification in the hotel pool."
*
I can't think about eating yet but we split the cost of a dozen donuts from Dunkin' and a couple of their iced frappe coffees, which are half melted by the time we make it back to the hotel. Our room is a delicious respite from the heat, but we're not there long.
Just enough time to change into my trunks and pull on a t-shirt, find a towel and my earphones. Arjun grabs a book from his bag and I know from the quickest glance at the cover that he's reading The Song of Achilles. That shouldn't make my knees weak, but it does.
I first listened to that a couple of years ago. The early days of Achilles and Patroclus reminded me of the early days of George and me. At the time, I loved it. I listened to it three times that year. I still fucking adore the book, but I'm scared it's tainted for me now.
For a hotel pool, it's surprisingly quiet. Maybe everyone's sleeping off last night's hangover, or they never made it home from a bright, windowless casino. Arjun and I manage to snag a couple of loungers right by the water and he doesn't hesitate to pull off his top. I finger the hem of mine.
I'm hyper aware of how weedy I look next to him. Where he has abs and pecs, I have a flat stomach and an undefined chest; where he is toned muscle, I am sharp collarbones and visible ribs. He is tight calves; I am knobbly knees. I feel like a baby giraffe, gangly and clumsy and awkward, and I don't want to be exposed.
When Arjun sits on the edge of the pool in nothing but his trunks, I perch on the edge of my lounger. I know nobody gives a shit what I look like, that no-one here cares if I have the body of an awkward pre-teen, but it's never been easy to swallow the feeling that all eyes are on me. Even though the people dotted around the poolside are all sizes and ages, showing off skinny limbs and fat rolls, back hair and stretch marks, muscled bodies and concave chests ... I can't help my self-consciousness.
"You coming in?" Arjun looks over his shoulder at me, his eyes dropping to the edge of my t-shirt that I can't stop fiddling with.
I slip off my flip-flops and join him on the edge, the water coming up to my mid-calf, and I keep on my t-shirt.
It's not that I hate my body, because I don't. It's fine. But everywhere I look, all I see is the one body that I'm apparently supposed to have, the body that Arjun does have. Strong arms and a six-pack; toned thighs and curved calves; a little more height and a lot more bulk. Every magazine I see blasts me with how to build muscle and finesse some ripped beach body, like it's unacceptable to be a bit too thin or a bit too fat; like my body isn't worthy of being seen on the side of a pool.
Arjun slips into the water and pushes away from the side, turning to face me and treading water. I tug at the edge of my top, but I can't do it. Instead, I stay on the side and kick my feet in the water.
"I'm good here," I say.
He watches me for a moment, as though he's dissecting my reluctance and preparing some kind of diagnosis. I wait. He scrutinises, and then regards me with an open, friendly face.
"I spent seven years at boarding school," he says. "You don't have to take your top off if you don't want to, but I've seen it all."
Well, damn. I guess he can see right through me.
Slowly, I peel off my top, and I drop into the water before he can stare too hard at the sliver of pale skin from my botched appendectomy, or the line of scar tissue from the time I smashed four ribs, or my weird outie bellybutton that looks like a tiny fist curled into my stomach.
Chlorinated water billows around me, filling my ears and my eyes and muffling the sounds of the city. It's peaceful under the surface. I hold my breath until my lungs are screaming, and I push off the bottom of the pool to break through the water.
"I thought," I say when I've sucked in a deep breath, "you spent half your life sharing a room with your sister?"
"I thought you were supposed to have a bad memory."
I do, I think, but I've been paying attention to everything you say.
"It just stuck out," I say, shrugging and trying to stay afloat.
"I spent the first, like, nine years sharing with my sister. Then she moved out and I went to boarding school. Her snoring was louder than all the guys I shared with," he says, paddling with ease. Of course he's a water baby.
Once I'm under the water from my shoulders down, my nerves float away on the ripples from my paddling arms. I try to release the tension in my body, relief reaching my toes as I try to keep myself afloat. I love being in the water, but I'm no swimmer. I don't have the coordination to do much more than bob around.
"What was boarding school like? Was it all boys?" I ask. "Wait, no, because your ex was head girl..." I trail off awkwardly when my memory catches up to my mouth and I wait for him to fill the silence, though right now he's a bit preoccupied with a float he's found. He balances his ankles on it and drifts near me.
"It was mixed. Separate buildings," he says, illustrating with his hands, "like, a mile apart. Not that that did anything to stop ... shenanigans."
"Oh yeah?" My interest is piqued and I look his way, but he's facing the sky with his eyes closed. "Were you up to no good?"
He laughs, a low chuckle, and my whole body simultaneously craves and can't stand the thought of more details. I imagine him sneaking out after hours to hook up with Taylor – I've got no idea what she looks like, but in my mind she's tall and beautiful, probably brunette.
"Not what you're thinking," he says, pointing at my face. "I mean, yes, there were a lot of antics, and one of my dorm-mates got caught butt naked with one of the girls in the woods between the buildings but..." He lets out a wry laugh. "Worst I ever did was sneak out to the odd party in town."
The whole idea of boarding school fascinates me. It seems so old-fashioned and distant and kind of ethereal, like it only belongs in books and films. It feels like another of those strange moments of semi-reality; I can't imagine living away from home as a kid and sharing a room with a bunch of strange guys.
"Did you ever get caught?" I ask.
He gives me a look. One eyebrow slowly lifts. His eyes may be the darkest shade of brown, but they seem to glitter, reflecting the shimmering surface of the sunlit pool. "You think I'd sneak out if there was a chance I'd get caught? March. Please. You underestimate me," he says. "If the school board had any idea how many times I was underage drinking when I was supposed to be in my dorm room, I definitely wouldn't have been head boy and probably would have been expelled – no diversity quota would have saved me."
"I think you're forgetting that you're ridiculously smart, Mr Applying To Cambridge Like It's No Big Deal. What were your grades again?"
I say it as a rhetorical question, but he tells me again – his A star and his two As – and he asks me what grades I got last year. I clam up, my throat deciding to shut down when teasing becomes serious questions that I don't like to answer. School is not my forte. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly my forte is, but it certainly isn't academic.
"I got two Cs and a D," I say at last, when it looks like he's scrambling for something to say to save me from his question. The letters tumble from my lips and splash into the pool and I hope they drown.
I know he doesn't know what to say. Smart people never know what to say to people who get crap grades, especially smart people with their sights set on one of the world's best universities. There's this laden pause between us, me wishing I'd said nothing and him probably wishing the same.
"Reckon Cambridge will take me?" I ask to break the silence. Arjun laughs.
"Well, some say the interview matters more than the grades," he says. I expect the subject to swiftly change but then he asks, "Do you think you want to go to uni?"
"Do you think I can? Pretty sure there isn't a uni in the world that will touch me with those grades," I say. "It's fine. It doesn't matter."
Not sure how true that is. My school presents uni as the only option after sixth form, so I'm not sure where to go from here.
"You might do better this year," Arjun says.
"Unlikely." My school may have given me extra time and let me use a computer for my exams, the display set to a colour and font I found easier to get on with, but I'm just not a school kind of person. I can't write essays or solve equations, and there aren't many A level subjects that fall outside those parameters.
In the end, I took Ethics and Religious Studies because I found it remotely interesting; I took History because it was Dad's favourite and he could help me, and I took Sociology because George was doing it. That, incidentally, was the one I did worst in.
"Well," Arjun says, "life isn't all about school. Sometimes I'm not sure I even want to do uni. It's just the only path I've ever thought to consider."
At least he has the option, I think. Even if he doesn't get into Cambridge, his grades are more than enough for pretty much anywhere else, while mine will likely be less than enough for everywhere.
I don't want to think about school and my lack of a future. I'm in a pool in Las Vegas and there's nothing I can do about it now, so I try to shove it out of my mind and focus on the present. After a few more companionable minutes in the water, I'm ready to get out and enjoy the sun.
"I'm gonna read for a bit," I say. Arjun looks at me and I see him doing calculations in his head. He knows I struggle to read and he knows I didn't bring a book, but he seems to come to a conclusion before I can say anything.
"What're you listening to?"
Oh, he's good. I've known too many people – often big readers – who don't count audiobooks as reading, as though I have to see the words to get the story. I can't help the grin that breaks out when I say, "I just started The Knife of Never Letting Go. Patrick Ness. I know it's a bit young b-"
I'm cut off when Arjun gasps. He splashes and stands, the float popping up and slapping the water. "One of my all-time favourite series," he says. "I must have read it five times all the way through. You're in for a treat."
I nod at his copy of The Song of Achilles. "So are you."
"You've read it? How'd you like it?"
"It's my favourite. No contest," I say, and I pray that he devours it, that the story wraps him in its fist and holds him so tight he can't escape.
*
a bit of a chilled chapter here! i hope you like it! how're you finding the story so far?