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Slowly, trying not to make a sound, Hannah turned the latch and opened the door to the sitting room. The overhead light had been turned off, but a lamp burned in the alcove by the fireplace, illuminating the room just enough to show that it was empty. The door to the corridor was closed.
Then the knock came again, one final loud thump, and with it a voice.
“April? Hannah? Are you in?”
Will.
Hannah almost flew across the living room to the door, her numb fingers fumbling with the lock. When she finally got it open, Will was standing there.
“Your light was—” he began, but something in her face must have told him everything was not right, because his expression changed almost immediately. “Hannah? Are you okay? Where’s April? Did something happen?”
Hannah couldn’t speak. She could only shake her head, No, I’m not okay, no, nothing happened. Both were true, after all. Will shut the door behind himself and led her across to the sofa. Then he sat her gently down.
“Hannah, you’re shaking. What happened? Do you need me to get someone?”
“No,” she managed, “I’m okay. I’m sorry, I—”
And then she burst into tears.
Before she really realized what had happened, Will’s arms were around her, and she was sobbing into his shoulder, feeling the warmth of him, the softness of the skin at the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent of laundry detergent and body wash and warm skin.
“You’re okay,” she heard his voice, strangely intimate and close, felt the heat of his breath on her ear as he said it over and over, “You’re okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay. It’s okay. There, there. I’ve got you.”
She could feel the shaking subsiding, feel her breathing getting calmer, and she did not want to move. She wanted to stay here, in the circle of Will’s arms, feeling his warmth and protection. Her lips were pressed into his T-shirt, in the hollow below his collarbone. It was not a kiss—but it so nearly could have been. And suddenly she knew that if she did not pull away, she was going to do something very, very stupid.
“I’m sorry,” she managed at last. She sat up straighter. Will let her go, although—was it her imagination?—there seemed to be something a little reluctant in the way he released her, and he kept his arm along the back of the sofa in a gesture that was close to an embrace, even though they weren’t actually touching.
Hannah coughed, pushed her hair back, and wiped her eyes, thankful that the lights in the sitting room were low. Her red eyes and puffy face would not look as bad as they really were.
“Do you want to tell me what that was about?” Will asked. His voice was quiet. Hannah swallowed. Not really was the honest answer. The truth was that now that Neville had left, she wanted nothing more than to pretend the whole thing never happened, but that was impossible with Will here. There was a long silence as Hannah tried to think up the right words, part of her hoping that Will would fill in the blanks, or else maybe just stand up and say, Right, I’ve got to go. But he did neither. Only sat there in a charged silence. She was painfully aware of his arm along the spine of the sofa, of the fact that if she leaned against the cushions, his bare forearm would be touching the back of her neck.
“It was nothing,” she said at last. It was a lie, and a transparent one at that. But she had the sensation of teetering on the edge of a precipice—and that to tell Will the truth would be to jump, setting in motion events she might not be able to stop. “I was being stupid. It’s this porter, Neville, he’s been really weird with me ever since I arrived. Nothing I can put my finger on but just—and then I came back and found him in my room. He didn’t do anything—” she said, hurriedly, seeing Will’s face. “It was just a shock, that’s all.”
“He was in your room?” Will said, ignoring the last part. He seemed not so much angry as incredibly confused. “I’m sorry, but what? Since when do porters hang around female students’ rooms? Any students’ rooms, for that matter?”
“He brought up a parcel.” Hannah felt like she was making excuses, but it was the truth after all. He had brought up a parcel. It was there on the coffee table in front of them. “It was too big for the pigeonhole.”
“Okay, but—” Will seemed momentarily lost for words. “But, that makes no sense. I mean, since when do porters do that? Surely the normal thing is to keep it behind the counter? They don’t take stuff up to students’ rooms, but even if they did, they shouldn’t be letting themselves into people’s rooms at”—he looked at his watch—“nearly ten o’clock at night, for God’s sake. You could have been asleep. And how did he even get in? Did you leave it unlocked?”
“I—I don’t know.” Hannah was taken aback by the question. She hadn’t considered how Neville had gotten in. Now the idea began to creep her out. Did the porters have keys? Or was it possible she and April had left the door ajar? They had been in a hurry, and April had gone back to get her gloves. “It’s possible,” she said slowly, “but… I don’t think we did.”
“This isn’t right, Hannah,” Will said. He was shaking his head, and now he ran his hand over his face, like he was trying to rub something away, some kind of clinging dirt.
“It’s nothing,” Hannah said, almost pleadingly. A sense of panic was beginning to take over, as if events were spiraling out of her control. She had wanted Will to make her feel better about this—not worse. “Nothing happened.”
“It’s not nothing, it’s weird. Is he the one who told you he liked little girls?”
“What?” Hannah was taken aback. “Jesus, no. He said he liked polite little girls. But how did you even—you weren’t there that night.”
“Ryan told me. And does it really make a difference? Little girls? Polite little girls? It’s fucking creepy.”
“It’s creepy, but it’s not creepy like that.” Hannah found she was getting heated. “I mean, he didn’t say it like that. He meant he liked polite—oh God, this is stupid.”
“Yes, this is stupid, why are you defending him?” Will looked bewildered now, and angry. Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah saw the muscles in his forearms tense and relax as he clenched his fist against the sofa back and then forced himself to let go.
“I’m not, I just—” She felt her throat close with a mix of frustration and impotent anger. How dare Neville do this—come into her room, soiling everything he touched. And why was Will acting like this was her problem?
She felt the blood rush into her cheeks and stood up.
