FenceStriking Distance - Sarah Rees Brennan Page 0,33
As Harvard watched, Nicholas finally let his point drop and trailed his weary way across the room, sliding down with his back against the wall until he hit the floor.
Harvard hesitated, then crossed the salle, knelt down, and asked Nicholas, “You doing okay?”
Nicholas’s head came up with a jerk, but he didn’t look angry that Harvard was there. He wiped sweaty hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand, mouth trembling out of shape for a minute, then said, “What would you do if—if someone called you a loser?”
“Who called you that?” Harvard asked with deadly calm.
He knew how some of the kids at Kings Row were about scholarship students. It had never seemed to bother Nicholas, so Harvard hadn’t wanted to embarrass him by making an issue of it, but now someone had clearly pierced Nicholas Cox’s impressive armor. Harvard never approved of cruelty and stopped it whenever he could, but this was different. Nicholas was on Harvard’s team. Nicholas was Harvard’s responsibility. If anyone had hurt him, Harvard wanted to know.
“Nobody from this school!” Nicholas assured him instantly.
Harvard paused, unconvinced, but from his experience with Nicholas, he was an honest guy. After a moment, Harvard nodded.
“Well, let me know if anybody is a jerk to you. If they wanna call you a loser, they can call me a loser, too.”
Nicholas turned to Harvard with his eyes popping out and so circular, they were basically flying saucers.
“Nobody could ever think you were a loser, Captain.”
“I’ve lost matches.” Harvard gave Nicholas a little smile. “I’ve lost more than that. Everybody loses. Sometimes you lose more than you knew you had.”
Writing the essay had forced Harvard to recall things he usually didn’t let himself dwell upon. It had all been a long time ago. He remembered being so little that when he’d sat in the hospital chairs, his feet dangled far above the floor. His mom had talked to the doctors behind a half-shut door, and Harvard had heard the words You might want to prepare yourself for the worst. His mother had gone into the room where his father slept, held his hands, and sobbed. Harvard had known with the quiet terror of a small helpless thing that despite what Mom had said about them being a team, there was nothing he could really do.
“What if someone called you a loser and you knew it was… sort of true?” said Nicholas. “It’s not gonna stay true. But it’s kinda true, for now.”
“It’s not true at all.”
Nicholas scoffed.
“Hey,” said Harvard. “It’s not losing that makes you a loser. It’s how you deal with it when you lose. I believe that.”
There was a silence as Nicholas pondered this, forehead scrunching up and mouth pursed, looking the same way he did when Coach or Harvard or Seiji suggested a new technique to practice.
At last, Nicholas shrugged. “I’m not used to losing anything.” He cracked a smile. “Not because I’m such a winner, obviously. It’s just I never had much to lose before. Now I have so much stuff. But at the same time, I feel kind of lousy about hanging on to it. Like I’m… maybe doing something wrong. Have you ever felt that way? I know it doesn’t make much sense.”
Harvard murmured, “It makes sense.”
“I know you and Aiden have been friends forever.” Nicholas’s rough voice was wistful. “It must be really cool, to have a someone you know will always be there. I’ve never had that, but I get that it would suck to let go of. That you wouldn’t want to, not ever. If anyone got in the way and messed stuff up between you and Aiden, you’d hate them, probably. Right?”
Harvard thought of the first time he’d looked around for Aiden and hadn’t found him. They were going on fifteen and had been getting more and more into fencing. Aiden had got taller all of a sudden and started to move differently. Harvard registered it, but he hadn’t really noticed: Aiden was always Aiden, always great and cool, and without question beloved.
Other people had noticed.
They’d been walking around Kings Row, deciding if they wanted to go there. As they’d crossed the quad, Aiden was talking about the Kingstone Fair. He seemed to really want to go.
“I was thinking,” Aiden said hesitantly behind Harvard, “that we could go together? You and me.”
“Sure,” Harvard had told him. “I could win you a bear. To be friends with Harvard Paw.”