Chapter 134: the story they heard

Chapter 134 — The Story They Heard

"Who told you that?" Roxanne asked again, because Elena had not answered the first time.

Elena glanced down the empty gallery as though the answer might be hiding behind a pillar. "The student who told me about the Autumn Social. She mentioned that you’d had a relationship that ended badly, and that you’d been terrified of being rejected for a long time afterwards. She heard it from someone else, who heard it from someone else. Every version I got was a little different."

"Did they tell you what happened, or just what they thought it meant?"

Elena hesitated. "Mostly what they thought it meant."

"Then you don’t know my story. You know their entertainment."

The words landed harder than Roxanne had intended, and she watched them cross Elena’s face. But Elena did not flinch or bristle. She went pink to the ears and lowered her eyes.

"I’m sorry. That was a terribly blunt way to ask. I’ve been carrying it around for days and I just let it fall out." She looked up. "I really am sorry."

Roxanne studied her. She was not angry, exactly. She was tired of strangers handling her heartbreak like a curiosity on a shelf. But the apology had been plain and unadorned, and she could tell it was honest.

"Thank you," she said. "I accept that. But I won’t answer every personal question just because someone is curious."

"That’s fair."

"Good."

She might have said more, but a boy with a lanyard came skidding around the corner and nearly collided with a pillar. "Roxanne? Thank goodness. Seven of the visitors have been sent to the wrong accommodation block. Their guide has vanished to deal with a scheduling thing, and they’re standing on the lawn with their luggage like a lost expedition."

"Which block did they want?"

"North. They’ve been sent to the south."

Roxanne pulled the official schedule from her folder and ran a finger down the page. "North block is past the chapel. I’ll take them."

Elena grabbed a box of welcome materials from a nearby table. "I’ll come."

It was not graceful. The seven visitors stood in a dispirited huddle beside a mountain of trunks, and every one of them had a problem. A tall boy insisted that the map was wrong. A girl with a satchel had lost her key card and was certain she had been robbed. A third student, who had said nothing for the first five minutes, finally asked in a small voice whether the cafeteria served food late at night.

"The map isn’t wrong," Roxanne said. "It’s just drawn by someone who hated the north block."

"I think that’s the same thing," the tall boy muttered.

Elena found the key card in the girl’s coat pocket, behind a handkerchief, and held it up like a magician. Roxanne led the way past the chapel while Elena handed out room slips and answered questions about hot water. The cafeteria, they reported solemnly, kept a pot of soup on until midnight. Someone sighed with relief.

By the time they had dropped the last trunk at the last door, Roxanne’s arms ached and Elena’s hair had escaped its clip. They looked at each other and began to laugh, helplessly, over nothing at all.

The sun was low when Roxanne finally sat down on the steps outside the student centre. She had barely settled when a shadow fell beside her, and Elena lowered herself onto the stone, a respectful arm’s length away.

"I apologise again," Elena said. "Not for asking about the relationship itself. For assuming I understood you from stories that weren’t mine to tell."

Roxanne turned a loose pebble over with her toe. She could have brushed it off. Instead she found herself answering.

"It ended badly," she said. "I won’t give you the details. But I was betrayed by someone I trusted, and it changed how I approach people. I’m slower to believe them. Slower to hope."

Elena said nothing and waited.

"I don’t want to be someone to pity, though." Roxanne’s voice stayed even. "I made mistakes too. I trusted people who didn’t deserve it. That doesn’t mean I was wrong to trust anyone in the first place."

"No," Elena said quietly. "It doesn’t."

She did not offer sympathy or a hand on the arm or any of the soft noises people made when they wanted to be seen being kind. She only nodded, as though Roxanne had handed her something to carry carefully, and Roxanne realised that she was not asking for pity. She was drawing a line, and Elena had understood it.

For a few minutes they watched students cross the courtyard in the failing light.

"I should tell you why I asked," Elena said at last. "I’m not usually so rude. It’s only that I’m very interested in what people say about each other."

"That’s an unusual hobby."

"It isn’t a hobby. At Ashgrove I’m known as the one who follows the rules and never causes trouble. Last term there was a disagreement in my student association, a mess over some funds, and I was blamed for it. Nearly everyone accepted it without asking for my side." She drew her knees up. "Nobody asked me anything. They just decided."

Roxanne knew that feeling. She knew it so well that her chest tightened, like a muscle remembering an old strain. She did not say so, and she did not promise to fix anything.

"What do you intend to do about it?"

Elena blinked. "I don’t know yet."

"Then decide what you want before you decide what everyone else thinks."

"That sounds like good advice."

"It’s mostly stubbornness."

Elena smiled, and some of the tension left her shoulders. "Is our trip still on? Thursday?"

"If our schedules allow. You wanted a bookshop and somewhere to eat."

"A bookshop first, then food. In that order. Always in that order."

"Then I’ll bring a bag for your books."

A familiar voice cut across the steps. "There she is. The deserter."

Liam strolled across the lawn with his hands in his pockets, looking pleased with himself. He stopped at the foot of the steps and looked from Roxanne to Elena and back. "I hear you are abandoning your usual friends for new company."

"I’m allowed to have more than four people in my life," Roxanne said.

Liam pressed a hand to his chest. "Four? That is how you count us? I thought we were unforgettable."

"Unforgettable and tolerable are not the same thing."

Elena laughed before she could stop herself, and Liam turned the full force of his attention upon her. "Liam Moonstone. I specialise in being unforgettable. I am also available for tours, introductions, and general—"

"Goodbye, Liam," said Roxanne.

"—charm, but I see I am being dismissed." He bowed, undefeated. "Do not forget, Roxanne, that you have plans with the rest of us. The movie night. I’m told someone else is choosing the film. It is a tragedy."

"I’ll be there."

"Splendid." He strolled away whistling, and Elena watched him go.

"Is he always like that?"

"Always. It’s the most reliable thing about him."

Later that evening, Roxanne sat on the edge of her bed, her shoes kicked off, thinking over the day. She had been asked about the worst thing that ever happened to her, and she had answered, and nothing had broken. It occurred to her that she no longer felt the urge to correct every rumour. Some people would believe what they chose, whatever she said. That did not mean she had to hide her past. It meant she could choose who deserved to hear it.

Humans spend a great deal of time worrying about what others think, her wolf observed, in a tone of mild bafflement.

It isn’t always pointless. Reputation affects friendships. Opportunities.

Perhaps. But not every opinion deserves your attention.

Roxanne considered that and found she had no argument. I’ll think about it.

You will, her wolf said, which was somehow worse.

Her phone buzzed with a message from Elena, confirming Thursday and promising to wear sensible shoes. Roxanne smiled and typed a reply.

Before she could set the phone down, it buzzed again. The number was unfamiliar, and the message was short.

You should ask Elena why she was really interested in meeting you.

Roxanne stared at the screen.

She did not assume Elena had deceived her. It could be gossip. It could be a misunderstanding, or someone amusing themselves by stirring trouble in a place where trouble was always available. She read the line a second time and then a third, and the words stayed exactly where they were.

But now she had a question she could not ignore.