7
ELLIE’S HAIR AND UNIFORM SMELLED like the color pink. Hibiscus pink, to be precise, a sticky residue from Anastacia’s shampoo and soap, which she’d had to borrow after their morning kendo class. In front of her, strolling into the dining hall, was Jamie, waving goodbye to Haru. She noticed Haru shoot him back a breezy smile that was so soft she wanted to squish it between her fingers.
Only three days into summer school, there was one thing she was sure of: she loved kendo. The confidence it gave her, having an outlet for her worries—all the things Lottie had told her she needed . . . It would all be perfect but for one little thing. Jamie was still barely speaking to her.
“Don’t you feel like Haru’s playing favorites with Jamie? It’s weird to see them so friendly,” Ellie grumbled, pulling the door open to the salty scent of dashi, a smell that instantly made her stomach rumble.
“Sounds like sour grapes to me.” Anastacia’s hair was up, and she had no makeup on after their training, yet she still looked like a model in Takeshin’s sailor uniform as she joined Ellie in the line for food.
Ignoring her, Ellie grabbed two onigiri from the immaculate array of food, stuffing the second one in her mouth and chewing it hard in search of the sour plum in the center.
“Who’s got sour grapes?” Saskia asked, leaning forward to take the strawberries off her cheesecake and place them on her girlfriend’s plate.
The easy affection between the two always left Ellie a little bitter, and she didn’t know why, clinging to the idea that it was because she still didn’t completely trust Saskia.
“Ellie thinks Haru’s playing favorites with Jamie.”
“Hmm.” Saskia’s hand hovered over a selection of sweet canned coffees. “Maybe it’ll be good for Jamie to make a friend.” Her words left an awkward silence.
Yes, but why can’t that friend be me? Ellie thought.
They made their way to a table in the center of the room, and the moment they sat down her eyes hunted for Jamie while she absentmindedly grabbed her wolf pendant, squeezing it until the metal dug into her palms.
Her gaze found him and she watched, curious and frustrated, where he sat at a table near the back. He was with the other two boys he and Micky were rooming with. One had his face stuck in a book and the other had headphones in, while Jamie was all permanently messy hair and brown skin like a shining copper penny. It would be his birthday very soon, not that he’d ever let them celebrate it, but it always reminded her that she’d known him her whole entire life. If she looked hard, there would be a small birthmark by his nose, flecks of gold in his eyes, and a natural kink in his left eyebrow.
Yet, despite knowing every trace of his face, the boy on the other side of the dining hall was not someone she knew. He didn’t move the same way or share a smirk the same way; his eyes didn’t glint with dry humor anymore. This boy was a dark shadow of her Partizan, riddled with burden and self-blame. Blame that should have fallen on Ellie.
How can he not see? How can Lottie not see? Everything bad that happened to Jamie and Lottie was because they worked for her family, and all Ellie could do was mess up over and over again. She didn’t deserve them.
A single beam of sunlight came from the dining-hall door and caught her eye, and then in came her little pumpkin princess flanked by the twins. When Ellie had first met Lottie she seemed so small and delicate, but she was taller now, hair longer and wild, her limbs dense with muscle. Yet her face still retained some of its roundness, and always her kindness shone through, soft and vulnerable, like a baby bird held in your hands. It made Ellie want to wrap her up and protect her from the world. But Ellie had gone and ruined everything by kissing her in the chocolate factory.
The very thought made her shudder, wondering how on earth she could have thought she was good enough to kiss Lottie. They needed to think about Leviathan, and school, and fixing Jamie, and not get caught up in stupid confusing feelings that she had no right to feel in the first place.
“What’s wrong?” Saskia asked.
“Nothing, just . . . Lottie and the twins are coming.”
A knowing look passed between Anastacia and Saskia that Ellie very much wanted to punch off their faces.
Lottie took the seat next to Ellie, smiling obliviously at them, flecks of paint in her fingernails from her morning art class.
“Hey, guys, the twins and I are gonna head to the library after lunch if anyone wants to join us?”
“No can do,” Saskia replied, taking a sip of her iced coffee. “We have a compulsory meditation session with one of the martial arts—”
Before she could finish, one of the Takeshin students from the ceramics course with sticky-out hair came running into the hall, hands still covered in dried clay. “PINKU ONI-CHAN! PINKU ONI-CHAN!” she shrieked.
All the other students jumped up, pulling out their phones in a frenzy as if someone had just announced that monsters were crawling out of the earth.
“Pinky . . . what now?” Lola asked.
Only three other students weren’t checking their phones—Jamie, although he looked equally confused, and his roommates. It looked like she had the perfect excuse to speak to him.
The boy with the book raised an eyebrow as they approached, while the boy with the headphones smirked, as if he had expected them. “I was wondering when you’d come to collect your lost puppy.”
“Excuse me?” Lottie asked, not realizing he was talking about Jamie. But Jamie didn’t seem to care, rolling his eyes in a
