TPCF 73

CHAPTER 73…………………….

Anita could guess what had happened to Rutger. The boys in their neighborhood were still obsessed with the war games they should’ve outgrown years ago (which Anita thought were idiotic). They called it “war,” but in truth it was nothing more than savagery—biting and clawing at each other.

“Well, I suppose. War is nothing but a barbaric fight too. Only it’s fought by grown men, not children.”

“What?”

Rutger, wiping the sweat from his neck with his sleeve, shot her a questioning look. Anita shook her head. She pictured a bunch of boys, each staking some shabby flag in “their territory” and then charging at each other to take it, Rutger mixed in among them. The image was both pitiful and amusing.

“You sure you don’t need treatment?”

“It’s nothing.”

“……”

“You’re going to tattle again, aren’t you?”

Rutger narrowed his eyes. Clearly, he still hadn’t forgotten the time when she had told Mrs. Vaylan about him being sick as a child. Anita raised both hands in protest, insisting on her innocence. Even at her exaggeratedly angelic expression, Rutger remained suspicious, lingering by the garden wall instead of going inside.

“So what’s the reason this time?”

Anita rested her chin on the wall dividing their houses and asked.

“That bastard…”

Thinking of Trey made Rutger flare up again, but catching Anita’s gaze, he changed his words.

“That guy keeps bothering me.”

He ran a hand through his hair. It was his usual habit when he didn’t want to talk about something. Knowing that, Anita decided not to press further. Even her parents found her endless questions tiresome, so how much more so would Rutger, who wasn’t even family?

“Alright. Good night.”

Leaving him to glower at the ground and take it out on his poor hair, Anita went inside. If she clung too much to a boy who found even friendship annoying, their relationship might break down entirely.

Sad though it was, Anita and Rutger remained something less than friends, but closer than just neighbors.

She hadn’t known making friends would be so hard. Keeping them was harder still.

How do other people manage to live like this every day?

As time passed, Anita’s feelings for Rutger grew stronger, but he seemed unwilling to cross the line he had drawn between them. To even hold onto her place as “friend,” Anita had to work at it.

And so, the two of them drifted along in that uneasy, lukewarm way until high school. Anita entered Rosetta Hall, a girls’ school, while Rutger went to Pennon Hall, a boys’ school. They shared the same foundation, so the campuses were side by side, but that hardly mattered to Anita.

After all, even as next-door neighbors they barely saw each other. Being at neighboring schools wasn’t going to change that.

Sitting at her desk, scribbling absentminded doodles on paper, Anita paused when a sound caught her ear.

Tap.

It was like the sound of a branch brushing against the window in the wind. Once she realized what it was, she went back to doodling.

Tap.

The repeated noise began to bother her. Recently, Anita had grown to dislike the tree in the garden. The one planted right outside her window cast eerie shadows on moonless nights, and when the wind blew, it made noises just like this.

Sighing, Anita went to the window to shut it. But as she reached out, her eyes met Rutger’s through the glass.

“Anita. Don’t close it—wait a minute.”

What? Anita froze. She knew his room was directly across from hers, but his curtains were always drawn, making it feel like a room where a ghost lived. This was the first time she’d seen it open.

“……”

“Just wait.”

Leaving Anita gaping like an idiot, Rutger urged her not to close the window and then disappeared. She stared blankly into the empty space where he had been, until a racket rose from his room.

A while later, Rutger reappeared in her view—carrying a ladder.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“Mind if I come over?”

“Come over? What do you mean come over?”

Ignoring Anita’s incredulous question, Rutger pushed one end of the long, rail-like ladder out his window. Watching it inch closer, Anita instinctively stepped back.

“Sorry, but can you hold that for me?”

As more than half the ladder jutted out into the air, it began to tip downward. Rutger leaned halfway out his window, and Anita, terrified he might fall, grabbed the swaying end and set it against her window frame—still unable to believe this was actually happening.

“…You’re not really going to cross over on this, are you?”

“……”

Instead of answering, Rutger gripped the sill and set one foot on the ladder. The metal clattered uneasily.

“Wait! Don’t move! Stay right there. I’ll come downstairs right away.”

Even as she said it, Anita couldn’t let go of the ladder. If it slipped, he could fall.

The gap between their houses was wide enough for a grown man to lie down stretched out. And her room was on the second floor.

“It’s only the second floor. Even if I fall, I won’t die.”

“Right, you won’t die. But you’ll at least break a leg, or get a concussion! What if you injure your spine?”

She couldn’t raise her voice too loud for fear of waking the family, so her frantic words tumbled out in a half-whisper. Rutger’s expression turned sulky, making no effort to hide the fact that he wasn’t listening. He lifted one foot onto the ladder rung.

Anita thought about shoving the ladder away from her window, but it was too late—he was already on it.

“Won’t you please come down? Even now?”

“……”

“Do I have to get on my knees before you’ll stop?”

Anita, pale as if she were about to faint, snapped at him. Rutger, balancing like an acrobat, advanced step by step. A gust of wind rocked him, and he wavered dangerously.

“Oh God…”

Anita wanted to go home. Even though she was home. She shut her eyes, unwilling to watch him fall. From the vibrations running through the ladder in her hands, she could feel where he was. A useless thought crossed her mind: I’m just like a spider clutching her web.

“You can open your eyes now.”

His voice, low and close by her ear, made Anita slowly lift her lids. Rutger was crouched in her window frame, looking down at her. He looked exactly like a thief sneaking into someone’s house.

The playful smile tugging at his lips made Anita draw a sharp breath.