Chapter Forty Seven

The heel of his hand dug uncomfortably into his cheek as Newt stared absently at the board their maths teacher was writing on. He hadn't written anything in his jotter since dating the top of the page, but he couldn't find the will to care about it. He felt listless, like every move his limbs made took a lot of focus and effort that he didn't have.

The last fortnight had rocked him like a see-saw, lowering him into listlessness before swinging up into restlessness and back again, and the whole thing was just exhausting. It felt like his life had gone into stasis, or that his mind had gone into stasis, unable even to comprehend the way that time was slipping away between his fingers. Tomás shifted in the seat bedside him, perhaps trying to catch his attention, but Newt just blinked lazily at the formulae being noted across the whiteboard in squeaky blue pen and listened to the drone.

There were hardly any weeks of school left. You could feel it in the air, the impending end. Summer was already trying to dig its fingers into their days, and Newt had been forcibly reminded by the warm nights how very different his new home was to England. May in England was nowhere near this warm. Sometimes the sun came out and gave them a day or two of potential sunburn, but nothing like this. All of a sudden it felt like the nights were too hot to sleep, and he hadn't closed his bedroom window in two weeks.

Something else he hadn't done in those two weeks was have anything resembling a conversation with Thomas. He'd tried texting, he'd tried running into him in the halls, tried catching him before or during or after practice. Every attempt had been futile, every stilted greeting shot down by the clear discomfort on his best friend's face and the way he wouldn't meet Newt's eye. He'd never seen the boy like this. it was incredibly unsettling, like Thomas wasn't really Thomas but was a clone, or something. He looked just like him, but it was like all the life that used to leak from him was muted, all the colours dull.

If he hadn't made the friends here that he had, Newt was sure he'd have gone mad already. He was wracked by guilt from the moment he woke up until the moment he fell asleep, over how wounded Thomas had looked, realising he wasn't in on the secret they'd all shared so shamefully. Guilty about betraying him, guilty about loving him, guilty about being such a mopey shucking burden on his friends, who'd had to deal with him zoning out constantly, deal with his moods, deal with the fact that nothing interested him anymore. It was like all he could do was exist and think about Thomas and how guilty and awful he felt inside.

It was Tomás' elbow in his side that alerted him that the bell had gone. He had zero focus, and exams were only a week away. At this rate, he was going to fail each and every one of them, and University would remain a pipe dream for a future he'd thrown away.

His parents would be so disappointed.

Newt cleared his throat and flashed an admittedly weak smile at the boy beside him, wishing the short boy wouldn't look at him so concernedly as he packed up his stuff.

"Sorry."

Tomás's mouth shifted in a weak smile too, but he waited.

"You are still not yourself, Newt." he said carefully as they finally trailed, last from the room.

Newt sighed. His friend said nothing more, and Newt was grateful, even if it left a bad taste in his mouth to keep disengaging from any conversation the gang tried to raise with him. Thomas was still a sore subject, always such a sore subject, and Newt just… ached. All over. All the time.

He missed him.

"How did last night go?" he asked, shoving the thought aside before it could take hold.

Tomás's mouth ticked up in one corner as his gaze darted away from the blonde. He opened his mouth as though to speak before halting, closing it, and ducking his head. Newt watched as the very faint pink dusted his nose. It twisted something sickly and jealous inside of him, but he swallowed it down and said nothing.

"It was… pleasant." the shorter boy eventually admitted, glancing shyly at Newt as he held the double door open for him, "He surprised me."

"Oh?"

Tomás nodded, unable to bite down the smile that time, and Newt's stomach tightened further with envy. The slow, unexpected blooming of Tomás SoulBond would have been exciting to watch, under other circumstances. Seeing the bizarre - but welcome - shift in Gally's attitude towards them recently had been rather dreamlike. Newt was never fully sure he was awake when the larger boy caught sight of them in the halls now, his usually narrowed eyes alighting each time with something much more tender than Newt had ever considered him capable of. Something much gentler than Newt thought he could stomach.

"Oui. We weren't intending on going anywhere, but it turned out he had arranged for us to eat at the Italian place, out past the Wall?"

"Oh, nice."

His friend's face grew pinker, and his smile secretive. Newt busied himself with fiddling with his textbooks so he wouldn't have to look at the expression. The acidic feeling in his stomach pooled further.

"It was, Newt. I did not think we'd have so much in common. He's very different from what I thought."

Newt almost wanted to argue. A small flicker of outrage flared in his abdomen, fuelled by his own misery. Gally was a crank. Everybody knew that. He had to be faking, had to be playing the naive younger boy like a fiddle. The boy Tomás was - had openly admitted to - rapidly falling in love with couldn't be the Gally who had tormented Newt since he'd arrived. Couldn't be the boy Thomas had warned him of, the boy who'd assaulted him, picked fights with Thomas for years. It simply couldn't be him.

But he held his tongue.

It wouldn't do any good to say those things to his friend, not least because of the damage it'd do to their friendship. He'd already shucked up one friendship, he didn't need to lose Tomás and the others too. But it writhed in that little festering pool of jealousy in his stomach anyway. That Gally could find his soulmate, that Gally could go on dates and make Tomás blush, and stop hiding his wrist.

It just didn't feel fair.

Gally, who'd made it his life's work to belittle anyone he felt like. Gally, who'd spent years accosting other kids in the halls, years picking on smaller kids, and quiet kids, and awkward kids, and calling Newt's favourite person in all the world every single name in the book. What right did Gally have to a happiness Newt couldn't have?

What right did Gally have to walk the school halls with his wrist visible? To know the other half of his soul existed, and that they wanted him?

What right did he have to wear his copy of Newt's mark on his wrist, those same five letter that had haunted Newt since meeting Thomas?

Why was it Gally who could show the world that he'd found his Tommy, when Newt couldn't?

It just wasn't fair.

But Newt said nothing of the sort, forcing it all deeper into that sickly puddle of envy and pushing a smile across his face.

"That's great. That's really great, I'm happy it's going so well."

Tomás merely beamed, green eyes flashing joyfully when they reached Newt's locker, as they ditched their extra schoolwork for the blonde's lunchbox. Newt did his best to feel that joy, the way he knew he should. He'd been giddy for Teresa, excited for Aris. So why couldn't he feel the same way for their newest friend?

Gally aside, Newt liked Tomás. He wanted him to be happy. He just… He selfishly wished it wasn't with someone who bore Newt's same SoulMark. It just felt like a further slap in the face from a universe that seemed so desperate to hurt him.

"How has it gone with…" Tomás bit his lip as his gaze grew somber and flicked Newt's way, "You know. Any… progress?"

Newt swallowed hard and shook his head and avoided the shorter boy's gaze like a coward. Tomás made no further attempt to broach the subject as they entered the Hall, and Newt was relieved when he was finally surrounded by his friends again, the presence of Teresa on one side and Aris on the other unlocking some pressure door that had been hanging around his lungs all day. Minho was lounging in the front row of chairs, chatting with one of the Choir Girls, and Newt gave him a smile in greeting before turning resolutely back to Aris.

Seated between them as they performed their usual task of speed-eating their lunches, he was almost able to pretend the ache in his chest was missing.

Almost, that is, until the sound of his own name very nearly made him choke on his water.

Thomas was fidgeting, standing next to Teresa's chair, his round caramel eyes fixed only on Newt. The blonde swallowed hard, his eyes watering as he fought to force the water down the right way, and stared.

"Can we talk?"

Newt thought he;d never ask. He'd feared Thomas was done with him for good. His heart gave an unsteady leap in his chest as he nodded, lurching to his feet with more speed than probably necessary. If he'd bothered to tear his eyes from the brunette he'd have seen Aris's grin, seen Terea's smirk.

Thomas led him from the Hall, into one of the deserted corridors in silence, Newt's heart thudding painfully the entire time. When the shorter boy halted, Newt almost ran into him, so fixated was he on what Thomas could have to say that he didn't even notice they'd reached their secluded destination.

"Hi." Newt said with a wince, when Thomas didn't speak.

"Hi."

Shuck, Newt was nervous. Ridiculously, unexpectedly nervous.

"What, uhm. What's up?"

For a moment, the question hung in the air before Thomas finally turned his gaze Newt's way again. Newt barely suppressed the shiver that tickled his spine. Two weeks, he knew, was nothing. Fourteen short days, give or take, since their last real conversation. But standing right there, it felt like it had been a year. His skin rose in goosbumps at Thomas's proximity, the familiar smell of his cologne making Newt's face flush.

Without preamble, Thomas dove right in.

"I want you to show me your wrist."

Newt's blood froze in his veins and all the air left his chest in a sharp whoosh.

He looked like he'd thought about it a lot and Newt knew, without knowing how he knew, that it had been on Thomas's mind from that first moment, that it had chased him and nagged at him until right now. He looked at Thomas and he wanted to, he wanted so badly it hurt. His fingers twitched, his mouth opened, but he couldn't. His voice wouldn't come. His stomach rolled. He closed his mouth, apology heavy on his tongue.

"I'll show you mine." Thomas promised him, his voice soft and secretive as he looked up at him with those baleful honey browns.

It took everything Newt had to close his own eyes against the expression on Thomas's face.

"Please, Newt." the words were quiet, and Thomas didn't look away even though his eyes were starting to water.

He was so much braver than Newt, who could barely look him in the eye, who almost couldn't shake his head.

"I can't."

"But… The others know."

Newt turned away.

"I can't."

Thomas's fingers closed around his sleeve even as he strode towards the doors. Newt had to get back into the Hall. He knew for sure that was the only place he'd be able to draw breath. The only way to ease the vice on his lungs was to escape back through those doors, away from Thomas.

He'd spent a fortnight wishing he could be near him and now that he was, everything in him was screaming to get away. His gut clenched with nausea. An image of Thomas recoiling from his exposed wrist made his eyes water.

"Tommy…"

"Please, Newt. Show me."

Newt could only half swallow the sob that rose from his throat as he yanked his arm away. He forced his legs to carrying him out of reach, ignoring the call of his name behind him as he rushed back towards the rehearsal Hall.