the pallbearer

Maybe it was the alcohol, consumed freely and joyously. Maybe it was the powdery substance on someone’s compact mirror, separated in lines by a gold and black card, subsuming him into the feeling of rushing down a particularly steep ski slope. Maybe it was simply the spontaneity of the situation. After all, for every interaction of theirs beforehand, he had time to prepare, to think; he had received instructions on how to behave and he stuck obediently through it. However, Théo had been caught up to the situation only minutes ago, not even by someone who knew, and he had no idea what to do. Maybe it was all of this, combined with the paranoia brought about by the date, by the reminder that only a year ago he had been complicit in dragging a body down into a lake. 

He was looking, in fact, for someone who would tell him what to do — this was a mistake, too, there was no subtlety in this gesture, it wouldn’t be wise to be seen together, but he hadn’t noticed or cared — when he stopped in his tracks, meeting a set of familiar cold, dead eyes.

(It wasn’t him, no, but for a moment it could have been.)

The cousin. 

Up until this point, he had managed well enough to brush her away. After all, there ought to be no reason for him to take note of her. No reason to burst through neutrality to feel one way or another towards her. The thoughts that raced through his head rampaged, and through it in that flash moment of panic he could only retrieve one solution: LEAVE, NOW. Get away from the problem, turn to his side and walk away as quickly as he could away from her. As soon as he took this action, he regretted it. As much as he liked to be fractious, Sylvianne and Bastian did have a point — keep calm, act like everything’s normal, because why shouldn’t it be? (But it wasn’t, it wasn’t normal, it wasn’t okay — ) Perhaps she hadn’t even noticed. Perhaps she had consumed alcohol, perhaps her veins were similarly carrying illicit substances, and he had mistaken the look in her eye for something else. He could hope, couldn’t he? It would be hard to lose her in the crowd; it seemed that there were downsides to towering over all others. Maybe he could tap someone on the shoulder, pretend he had seen them and was very enthusiastic to speak to them, but just as he came up with this thought — he was stopped in his tracks.

Cora had meant what she said to Lizzie: it would be impossible to avoid it. Even alone, even if she somehow got away from the wild mausoleum of the mountains, she wasn’t going to escape the bonfire, nor what it signified. But that didn’t make it easier to stand where he’d stood. On campus, Cora could graft Fred into the classrooms and dorm hallways, she could see him tucked into the dining room chairs or hunch over a book in the library, nibbling at the end of his pen. There was only one way she could imagine him up there, after the grim funeral procession of party-goers had led her up the mountain, oblivious to the strain on her face. The burn in Cora’s thighs and the shortness of breath had felt something like penance then, but in the face of the flames and the clusters of students around her, she couldn’t focus on that substitute pain anymore. She couldn’t focus on anything but the icy hands of immediacy and shock, and then — one recognizable face swimming in front of her, as pale and jarred as her own. 

The moment hovered, taunt and quivering with ambiguity. Cora might have left it alone, if he hadn’t turned the way he did. She might have retreated fully inside her head, but he had looked at her, he had been seen by her, and he’d jolted away like he’d been burnt. Her heart kicked in her chest and Cora lurched forwards almost as automatically as he had, sudden adrenaline and instinct prompting her to follow parallel to the white crown of hair visible over the throng, fixated on her quarry until he was forced to curve close enough for her to veer purposefully into his path. It was very nearly a collision, Cora very nearly wanted it to be. “Did I frighten you?” She asked calmly despite the pounding  in her chest as he jerked to a stop before her, her pale eyes bright and keen as a razor on the Rothchild’s face. 

 Théo was his own jagged house of sharp angles and high cheekbones, the firelight playing over the contours of his face, reflecting back at her in wide, dilated pools of his eyes. How often did another being get the chance to taste his fear, she wondered in a moment of dark satisfaction and darker thrill. How often did he fear anything at all? Cora didn’t give him the chance to answer the first question. “Were you responsible for this?” She meant the neon yellow letters dripping accusation on the trees around them, but she didn’t say it. It seemed like the kind of thoughtlessness a man like Théo Rothchild would feel immune enough from consequence to do: sloppy and apathetic, but bold. Something to ensure gossip and attention, even if his name wasn’t explicitly on the lips of those trying their damnedest not to stare. 

Don’t look. It’s a mantra she repeats to herself each time (morbid) curiosity creeps up on her, each time she feels the urge to turn around and face the vile yellow paint. It was a taunting sentiment, or so it seemed for the girl that distanced herself from the traumatic event entirely. A coping mechanism, unhealthy perhaps, but it had been working. Now, she pulled her faux fur coat tighter around her. She is face to face with last years tragedy, which unfolded while the former freshman was having the time of her life. Momo nearly smirked at that. Oh, the irony.

She noted quickly how strange she seemed. Yukimura Momoko, the joker, the life of the party, standing alone with a mere shot of vodka coursing through her veins. With that, she glanced to the plastic cup a senior had handed her before. She needed a drink, desperately. Momo glanced around, looking for someone, anyone, with a bottle in their hand. Once she made her decision, she moved, finally, from her position, towards the person. This could still be a night to remember. Or to forget, depending on how drunk she got.

She cleared her throat, nudging her target. A sweet smile on her lips.  “You wouldn’t mind sharing some of that would ya?”

“Just take it,” Cora said distantly, barely registering Momo’s face before she pressed the half-full bottle she’d been clutching loosely into the other girl’s grasp, “Most of the beer here tastes like piss anyways, but you taste this one less the more you drink it.” Cora’d obtained the drink near the same way, thoughtlessly passed on by someone trying to draw out a celebratory mood, or just encourage rowdiness. But those were one in the same, she thought, weren’t they? Cora remembered the gleeful chaos of the wine cellar. Still, the alcohol present was the only similarity that could be drawn from that party to this attempt at — what? A commemoration? 

Cora had given herself over to the last one wholly, a little too willing to get swept away in the drunken revelry, the mingling of sweat and bodies. The mountain wind tonight stole away the warmth of the gathered groups and the noise of voices rising beneath the trees had a pitch of frantic necessity, not celebration. The kind of noise a village would make to scare away what lurked in the darkness. 

The lighter was in her pocket, in her fist. Cora remembered Momo at her side —  her friend.  Was this farce to her too?

Lizzie: oh

Lizzie: i wasnt planning on it no

Lizzie: was going to do exactly what you mentioned actually

Lizzie: do you think thats a bad idea?

Cora: laying in bed or going?

Cora: whichever, i've made up my mind.

Lizzie: hi cora

Lizzie: ur not thinking of going to the bonfire tonight are you?

Cora: i'm going.

Cora: can't avoid it. it's better than just sitting in bed, knowing exactly what's happening anyways.

“Hm,” Clement hummed, taking the stub of a cigarette and exaggerating a thoughtful expression, “I don’t think the debt is paid quite yet — I gave you a whole stick and you are only giving me a fraction of one.” He took a sad drag of the cigarette, and passed what little was left to Cora again. “And we’re sharing.” A little giggle. “If I remember right, you didn’t have to share the stick I gave you either.”

A smug smile painted itself across Clement’s face at her assessment of his costume, fixing his halo as quickly as she’d hit it off-kilter. “You know I’m an angel and you know it — I never get into any trouble.”

He delighted in the surprised noise he got out of her, showing in the smile plastered over his face. Keeping her held close to him (leeching warmth and, honestly, just enjoying having someone be that close to him) he let out a bark of a laugh at her swearing at him. “I can’t help it,” he said, “I speak French — now I’m not French but whatever — and you’re English; we have to jab each other.” His hand tensed on her shoulder as he wobbled away and then wobbled back conspiratorially close to her again. “Angels like to get their fingers in things but fuck off at the moment of showing themselves, y’know.” An easy laugh, still quite loud from the alcohol but not as harsh as the one before, popped out of him. “But I’m not like that; I like that follow through, y’know?”

Clement fixed Cora with a stare full of drunken determination. “Are you like that?” he asked, “do you follow through things?” He paused for a beat, a little hiccup in his breathing, then smiled again. “We should both go to the same room, y’know? Then neither of us are stumbling back in the cold alone.”

He bantered like they were old friends; she would usually be more obliging, but this situation was already different from her typical keen riffing with strangers. “Oh, forgive me,” Cora replied unconvincingly with a roll of her eyes, far from shy when her came turn came for a drag, “I’ll start carrying scissors just to trim a perfect three-quarters off for you next time I decide to abuse my lungs.”

Of course it was different, because they weren’t strangers. Clement had irked her the first time they’d met by the cable cars with his double-talk partnered with his little kindnesses, a completely one-sided sport compared to the amiable verbal dueling she preferred. Then the handful of times they’d brushed in passing — even then she hadn’t escaped his velvet barbs. Anger was rising in Cora’s already flushed cheeks, her ears falling deaf on his continuing chatter. Perhaps it was an unreasonable anger, but a pure one, inflamed by the activities of the night. 

His perfectly male proposition was the final prick to her flayed-raw sensitivity. Cora’s back stiffened like she’d been suddenly struck by lightening and the energy crackling in her eyes carried a similar electricity as she twisted out of his grasp for the last time, standing back far enough that his hands couldn’t reach her for any quick attempts at appeasement. Cora’d spent enough time pinned under microscopes in the past bloody year, for journalists and policemen and grief counselors and family, she would would not lie prone and pleasant for this boy, pleasant as he may pretend to be with his arms around her shoulders.

“I’m not a betting man, y’know,” he said, liquid confidence spilling the words out, “I just like to know things.” The warmth of her hand around his chilled wrist was welcome, and gone before he could enjoy it anymore. “And I always get to know things.”

Clement took the crumpled cigarette with delight — plucking it out of Cora’s fingers with a bouncy glee. “Oh send my regards then, if only to get more sticks out of them.” He laughed. The cigarette wobbled in his grasp, losing more tobacco with each shake. “Share, yes?” He thrust the cigarette back toward Cora, knocking it against her chest. “Light it.”

A loud, barking laugh jumped out of Clement at Cora’s equally as loud reply. “They were!” Their conversation bounced off the corridors — giving them a light that they’d not seen in months — and Clement pressed closer to Cora as she spoke again. “Hey,” he tried to look offended, failing miserably, “these are my wings, I’m an archangel don’t you know? Michael? You know this?” He swayed away from her for a beat before pressing close again. “Y’know I— I could completely tell you about the angels and their, um, their…,” he trailed off, looking up to her eyes with his dark ones — as if she’d know the words that were escaping him. “Fuck. Fuck English.” He giggled; pulled her tight to his side, smile bright even though his eyes had slid shut. “You’re English aren’t you? Fuck you.”

"You always get to know things?” Cora parroted back disbelievingly with a snort of amusement, shaking her head, “Oh, likely story  — hold still, you idiot.” A hand darted out to grab Clement by his coat, halting the other before he could wander off once she’d made her sudden stop, fumbling to mold the damn cigarette back into a vaguely cylindrical shape with her fingers, bottom lip anchored between her teeth in concentration. 

“This is going to last us all of two seconds,” Cora mumbled around the filter matter-of-factly once she’d trapped it in her mouth. It was hard to shake the guilty flicker of caution about lighting up in the hallways where they walked to class — the twist of loose paper where half the contents had been lost burned up in an instant, ash scattering on the carpet underneath their feet while she got a lungful of smoke with barely any taste to it. The feeling didn’t stick. She pulled a face immediately, squinting hard as she shoved her arm out towards Clement’s face to offer the thing to him, filter first, “There, debt: paid.” 

“Oh I will then,” Clement said, giggling at the thought of jumping into Cora’s arms as he did, “Could you even support me with those skinny little arms of yours?” Another laugh, more barking, popped out of him at that comment. A lopsided jab at her that wasn’t really that ill-intended.

At the lighter being shoved into his chest, Clement looked surprised. “No.” He took the lighter into his hand. Flipped it around with clumsy fingers. “That’s not what I meant — I want a… fuck,” his eyebrows tensed down into a frown, the word not coming to him in his drunken fog. “A stick.” He hoped she’d get what he meant, making a smoking motion using the lighter as a stand-in cigarette.

Clement was pushed off, but that didn’t stop him from falling in wobbly step with Cora — leaning against her shoulder-to-shoulder with little difference in height between them — back to the hallway. “Now, now,” he chided, “don’t they say the ancient’s textiles were finer than anything we have yet to reproduce?” A pause. “Then again, weren’t they all nude? Would you even want to see half of those people nude?” He slung his arm around Cora’s shoulders again. “I know you’d not mind a few of them, I’m sure.” He lolled his head toward her; winked. “I’m sure.”

"You’re one to talk, matchsticks.” If he wanted to jab, Cora decided, determined, she’d jab right back  —  twisting to grab the other’s hands before she picked one and circled her fingers tight around the boniest part of his wrist to make her point, “Only one of us could pick up the other,” She stated confidently, “And if I were you, I wouldn’t place bets.” 

Her brows knit together in confusion before his request processed properly, “Oh,” Cora tittered in quick-to-rise amusement, prying her lighter from his fingers again, “No, no, I’m pure mooch, I usually just - wait.” A small flicker of remembrance, patting down her leather jacket again before locating and triumphantly extracting her prize: half-crushed and shedding tobacco, a lovely shade of pale pink. “All yours,” She presented the crumpled cigarette to Clement with the airs of a queen bestowing knighthood, “Courtesy of the Russian Federation.” 

Most would have went along with his insistence. They would have admitted wrongdoing, expressed contrition, sough penance. He had offered a path to forgiveness, after all. The conversation would have tipped like a scale the moment they came toe to toe with him. But, Cora seemed a more equal match. They were talking about the shot she had spoiled, but so much more was being said.

“I can covet an imperfect approximation,” he answered. “Perhaps it’s not so much about the finished project — the material thing,” Now, he was gesticulating emphatically. “As the pursuit of it. Does every action need to follow a rigid and impeccable logic to be worth completing?”

Her question went unanswered, and he raised in return a question to which he already knew the answer. Rigid and impeccable logic was a secure bridge spanning a dark, deep chasm of uncertainty. Anything else was clumsily assembled driftwood and twine.

He laughed. “Now, you’ve exposed me. But, may I still have a photo of you … Cora?”

“Self aware of the futile nature of your pursuits,” Cora replied dryly, head canting to the side in a gesture parodying inquisitiveness, “You wouldn’t happen to be a philosophy student, would you?” They hadn’t crossed the gap between aloof and familiar yet, not entirely. But her hackles were undoubtedly lowering.

The stranger’s acquiescence to this kind of word game —  perhaps enthusiasm for it, she thought as she watched his broad gesturing — worked in his favor, even if nothing else did. “No,” She finally conceded, the corner of her mouth quirking up, “I suppose not. Society would be very different if logic was as compelling as the unreasonable, wouldn’t it?” 

Even that statement didn’t encompass the whole of it, not if she truly examined what she knew about herself. Logic was far from infallible. Emotion bent the other all too easily to its own purposes. Cora had been ready to say yes, had stepped closer out of the flow of the hallway and into the space he had designated for himself, until that very last word, that name, stilled her again. 

“Mama didn’t raise no quitter.“

Felix angled his wrist and jerked–an attempt to enforce brute strength over finesse but alas. Nothing. Third time wasn’t the charm either, and Felix crammed both hands into the pockets of his peacoat as he retreated a step. “Well, fuck. That blows.” He had plans. Granted–they hadn’t quite extended past ‘get in a cable car’ but he was a man who preferred to let the breeze take him. Just a leaf in the wind. But now he was stagnant because this fucking thing–

He slammed a foot at the door, before cocking his head her way. “Wouldn’t happen to have a pin in that pretty head of hair, would you? Maybe I can pick it.”

Cora’s brows shot up at the stranger tried a variety of different variations of attack, seemingly convinced that brute force was going to win the day and just as stubborn as the ones who’d come before him with the same idea. All the better for free entertainment, she supposed, amused. “And what, enjoy going nowhere from the inside?” A laugh burst out of her at his query, sudden and surprised, “I think you’d have more success tobogganing.” 

“I’ve actually never tried that little coffee shop. I think I tried to one day, then I started pronouncing what I wanted all wrong and the poor cashier looked so confused I just ended up pretending to get a call and running off to hide my shame. Maybe next year I can actually tackle my fear of collecting cringey experiences and give them another go.” Arlo smiled to himself at his own imagery of LA. Late night animal fries from In n Out, hiding behind his mother’s prized award night gowns while his brother attempted to seek him out in their sprawling mansion, the feeling that he was not.. quite alone… A cold shiver ran down his spine again, forcing his attention back to the girl in front of him. “I always find exploration a bit more fun with a buddy, but everyone seems very busy with finals these days. That, and I don’t want to bother anybody. Have you found any hidden gems that you consider worthy of a visit? I’m… Arlo, by the way; I’m sorry for not introducing myself sooner.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, extending a hand.

Sylvianne spun, looking the other girl up and down. The glance was long, but when her eyes finally settled back on Cora’s green ones, her lips were curved in an indulgent smile. “Consider if your initiation.” She leaned in, Mutiny by Margiela warm on her skin. Half of the fun in being a tease was catching reactions from it, through dark lashes she peeked over at the other girl. “I’m glad you showed up, I was terrified that I’d be forced to make my own fun.” 

Cora had read the dress code and arrived as per the instructions, but casual in a place like Augustine meant a world of difference compared to casual anywhere else. There was hardly any denim in sight– and where it was present, the wearers looked sheepish, as if they couldn’t believe that they’d considered Levis to be acceptable at an event where gilded Dolce and Gabbana seemed to be the standard. Somehow, Sylv determined, it suited her– she’d of looked more out of place in a suit, she imagined. “You need a drink,” she observed, noting Cora’s empty hands. Her own glass tipped back, draining promptly. “And I need a refill.” 

Now, she offered her hand for the other girl to take, gesturing towards the bar. “Shall we?”

“Oh, I tremble to think what that would’ve looked like,” Cora replied with a huff of laughter, eyes shifting down to the proffered hand before she confidently slid her own into Sylvianne’s grip, pleased and validated by the gesture. More flickers of something she was more familiar with than this strange, hostile place: like all the times she’d stumbled home in a raucous group through the streets of London after dark, laughter ringing and hand in hand with a stranger she’d only just met at a bar, as easy as letting go. A snapshot of that ‘what if’ life she could’ve lived at Saint Augustine – except not. She was living it.

“And this,” Cora tapped a free finger against the jeweled cross over Sylvianne’s heart, arching an amused eyebrow, “Just something you happened to have laying around in the back of the closet, of course?” They made an odd couple, complimentary and contrasting all at once and Cora let Sylv be the one to part the crowd ( which the other girl did effortlessly, there was some sort of metaphor about the Red Sea in there that she was far too tipsy to put the effort into fully forming ). Why question this? 

Clement was well and truly drunk, and his drunken mind decided it was best to leave before he got into more of the drink and broke his standing record of never having gotten sick from drink before. He stumbled up the stairs out of the cellar and was well on his wobbly jaunt down the hallways when he spotted a familiar face.

“Hey!” He yelled, smile plastered onto his face. “Got a light? You owe me one, Cora.” He let out a giggle, and ran the distance between them, slowing down with a jump and an arm thrown around her neck. “And don’t be sour, I know you don’t like that self pity shit. What d’you have to be sad about? It’s the bacchanal.”

How late had it gotten? The dim gray light in the corridors offered nothing but ambiguity, more confusion for a head already swimming with vague uncertainty. She knew the direction she was going in and the intended destination: face down in her bed while the room tilted and twisted beneath her, sinking into the merciful swamp of sleep. Her legs ached more than her head did; for once, she thought, she might actually knock out long enough to miss the sunrise ( if it hadn’t happened already... )

A sudden shout shattered the silence Cora’d been wading room-wards through  –  she’d reached out to brace herself on a column just before the not-so stranger flung his arm around her, which turned out to be a fortunate move or they likely both would’ve hit the floor. She swore in surprise either way, “Christ, Clement!”, jolting at the contact before she could grab at his name in her mind, the boy all red-faced and grinning. “Jump into my arms straightaway next time, why don’t you?” Cora chided, swaying under his weight before her legs decided to support her properly again. He looked as bombed as she felt though, and it was hard not to laugh at the contrast with how he’d presented himself when they’d first met. 

This would be her last party of the like at Augustine. Sometimes, it struck Sylvianne deeply that her time in the alps was coming to an end. There was only a few months left to her undergrad; what she occasionally referred to as a glamorous prison sentence would be over and she would be released into the world as some semblance of a fully formed adult. It was a bizarre thought, one that she ruminated over a French 75– made by the bar that had cropped up, fully staffed, within the first few hours of the party. She sipped it, glancing out at the crowd of students. Honestly, it wasn’t bad.

Dark eyes slid over the event, trying to pick out features that she recognized through the din and the smoke. Her friends had seemed to disappear and as a result her pretty lips twisted in dissatisfaction– she adored company, but without someone by her side, she’d have to seek it out. Taking a step towards the bar once more, someone reached for her elbow, making Sylv turn. “Yes?”

There was a surrealism to everything that elevated the event beyond what she’d expected. The low repetitive thump of the music resonated through the ancient heart of the monastery itself, rich plumes of tobacco smoke ( and some smoke that certainly wasn’t tobacco ) gathering on the low ceilings and mixing with the cool scent of the underground and the swell of a thousand competing perfumes and warm bodies – by the time Cora had been plunged into it fully, the headiness of the atmosphere had settled fully on her skin with a light sheen of sweat from the crush of the dancers. She wanted another drink even if she didn’t need it. She wanted to keep existing in a space where she didn’t see his face everywhere. 

There were at least four filled glasses lined up (relatively) neatly along the top of the up-ended barrel serving as their cocktail table: typical party plastic mixed with comically oversized shot glasses. One had just hit the wood empty, and the pinched expression on Lizzie’s face having battled with its contents made Cora laugh, “Not a fan of the Pinnacle?” She called, shaking her head and bending forward to be heard over the music, “Good! Foretells good things for your sense of taste!” 

All of these were technically for Liz, but whatever was in Cora’s own glass was doing a fine impersonation of rum punch and if the drinks she’d had before hadn’t started warming her, the sweetness in this current one would be picking up the slack. She felt  – what did she feel? Hopeful? Was ‘happy’  too sacrilegious for her to think about now, even with the tongue-in-cheek theme of the revelry around them? “Have some water, you teetotaler,” She teased, handing the least dangerous offering to her companion ( – and Lizzie was actually there, talking and joking with her, sticking around long enough for this silly fun of playing Russian roulette with an inexperienced drinker, hiding horribly artificially flavored vodka among the legitimate options ), “Want to face the charging bull head-on again or go refreshing this time?”