Fontaine Five

FOUR

          WE'RE NOT GOOD people, the five of us. I know that much. I know better than to pretend that isn't true. Although Ellis was close to being one, despite having us as friends, and despite his father.

The thought of seeing Daniel Grey now punctures dread through the pit of my stomach.

Jude's teaspoon clinks against his mug. Coffee, black. Where Blair likes it with sugar, and for its caffeine just as much as its bitterness, Jude takes it as it is, purely for the taste. I watch as he lifts it by the rim, and lets the steam roll over his skin before taking a sip.

We've taken refuge in some nondescript café, far enough away from school. Russo's seemed like the wrong place to go.

"You sure you don't want anything?"

I nod, and tilt my head against the window. Absentmindedly, I raise a hand to my face. My eyes are a little puffy from rubbing away tears on the way here. "How's the coffee?" I ask randomly. He ponders for a moment.

"Like actual shit."

In spite of everything, I smile a little, just as our phones light up simultaneously from the table. Another message from Blair. Jude flips them face-down.

"Isn't it ever enough for her to just know we're alive? I already told her we left," he sighs, leaning back in his seat.

"She probably wants to know where we are." I've decided to preoccupy myself with observing passers-by. "We shouldn't have left without them."

"You say that like ditching class was my idea."

I say nothing. We sit in silence for a while, staring out of the window in opposite directions. I'm almost expecting Blair and Lan to enter in through the doors after having tracked us down. I wouldn't be surprised if they're out looking for us this minute. Though, on second thought, Blair hates missing class. A straight-A overachiever through and through.

"This is all some sick, fucked-up bad dream," Jude says, dragging a hand down his face. "It doesn't feel real."

"Nothing since Davis' office has felt real." A quick glance to my phone, because some untouchable part of me is anticipating a message from Ellis, revealing this whole thing as nothing more than a twisted prank. He'll show up at school tomorrow with a beating heart and a bashful grimace, the one he pulls when he knows he's in trouble but tries to play it innocent. Took it too far, didn't I? Got you good though.

My attention falls back onto Jude, who hums in agreement. He takes another drink, and I note the brown speckled mug. Cute, if you're into that neutral Scandinavian shit. Wouldn't I know. Ellis didn't believe my mother and I were related when he first met her. We look nothing alike; her beautiful, tan, dark-haired self against my apparent whiteness, all blonde hair and pale limbs by comparison. God had decided to paint me the spitting image of my disappointment of a father, who'd taken off back to Denmark when I was nine.

My eyes, though - they're hers. And they're on the boy opposite. Eyes on eyes. Brown on a color I can't quite discern, somewhere between grey and hazel, maybe. Whatever it is, the ambiguity suits him.

All of a sudden, I'm acutely aware that this is the first time we've been alone together since that day in summer, and it's spiked me on a fence between dismissal and discomfort. But I let the feeling settle into itself, on the basis that Jude and I are friends over anything else. There are no harbored emotions. Unlike others our age, our group doesn't play coy or games. At least, not with each other. We see and say things as they are.

So I shouldn't be surprised when he tells me not to feel bad about what we did, echoing my own thoughts.

"It never hurt him. He never knew. And neither will the others."