Striking Distance (Fence, #1)

by Sarah Rees Brennan

“You stay by me, Aiden,” Harvard had told him. Aiden always had. He’d kept the bear, too. Good thing he had, since it couldn’t run off and desert him like everyone else.

That's adorable

“—the best-looking guy in school, everyone agrees—” Nicholas, who found his attention wandering when people discussed the supremely uninteresting subject of Aiden, focused. “Wait, why are we suddenly talking about Seiji?”

That's embarrassing

When you weren’t feeling it, you weren’t feeling it.

Consent! We love to see it

“You might be in a single-parent family now, Harvard Paw,” Aiden told his bear. “I’ll do my best, but you know I’m not the responsible type. You’ll probably run wild from lack of supervision and eat picnics belonging to hikers. Or babies belonging to hikers. I don’t know, I foresee hiker-related tragedy ahead.”

He never wanted to feel that vacancy in his chest again, the knowledge he was expected to do something and couldn’t possibly do it.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m messing stuff up just by being here,”

lol same

Was Nicholas too poor for pajamas? That was so sad.

Seiji💀

He didn’t see why everybody expected him to excel in life with no training.

As was typical, Nicholas appeared to have given up on his essay and life in general,

Relatable

“Hey. Hey, sleeping beauty. C’mon. Wake up.” “Never,” Aiden mumbled into his pillow. “Are you awake?” Aiden pulled his pillow and half his tawny hair across his face. “I’m hate wake.” “Let’s return to consciousness just a little more and start putting the words into sentences that make sense,” Harvard encouraged.

God I love them.

It was a chance to have Aiden to himself,

😏😏😏

“You could have asked me,” said Aiden. “I would have said yes. Whatever you ask me for, I’ll say yes.”

Aiden didn’t have many rules he lived by, but this was one. He didn’t ever hurt Harvard. He wouldn’t do that.

“We have no other friends at Kings Row. Nobody talks to me because I’m a vandal with a scholarship, and nobody talks to Seiji because… well, because…” “Because of my personality,” said Seiji. Nicholas nodded. “Right, because of that.” “Or lack thereof,” Seiji added in a brisk, factual tone. Nicholas raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you’ve got one,” he said. “Don’t know that I can describe it, but you’ve got one.”

That's so sad but I cackled

“Carrying around a stupid bulky raincoat detracts from my air of insouciance!”

Facts

Aiden curled his fingers around the loops of Harvard’s jeans and pulled him in a fraction closer. Aiden kissed him. Aiden’s mouth was soft. The whole kiss was soft, like a question gently asked. Then, a little less soft. Harvard liked it.

Harvard’s hand went to the nape of Aiden’s neck, tangling in his hair, pulling so the elastic came loose and the rain-dampened hair fell around their faces. The wet hanks of Aiden’s hair got in the way of the kiss, and Aiden pushed them back with a confused murmur of complaint as though he didn’t understand what his own hair was. Harvard pulled back from the lavender-lemonade kisses to murmur, “I love your hair.” “Stop not kissing me,” Aiden commanded softly. “Stop it at once.” Harvard kissed Aiden’s mouth and his jaw and the cool raindrops running down Aiden’s throat as heat ran under Harvard’s skin. Aiden made another, different sound, hands falling away from his hair to cup Harvard’s face between his wet palms, and smiled, biting at the corner of Harvard’s mouth. Harvard made a helpless noise. Aiden half murmured and half moaned in return, sounding both pleased and wounded, and arched in even closer. That is so sexy, Harvard thought, and froze in horror.

I am deceased

Harvard was a fool, but a beautiful fool with gentle hands, so Aiden allowed him to talk nonsense while he laid said hand carefully upon Aiden’s brow.

Love was a delusion, nothing but an electrical impulse in the brain, but there were many impulses running electric under Aiden’s skin right now.

“I don’t believe in songs or promises. I don’t believe in hearts or flowers or lightning strikes.” Aiden snatched a breath as though it was his last before drowning. “I never believed in anything but you.”

“You’re so warm,” Aiden said. “Nothing else ever was. I only knew goodness existed because you were the best. You’re the best of everything to me.”

Aiden was the whole world stretched out beneath him. Aiden’s hair spread out on the sheets, Aiden moaning in his ear. The magnitude of his certainty tipped Harvard over the edge into terrifying and unwelcome knowledge. Terrible realization dawned, remorseless illumination shed on a whole landscape. Harvard found himself looking at his entire life in a new light. Aiden on their first day of school, on their first day of fencing class, on their last day in the hospital, on their first day at Kings Row. Inextricably part of every important moment in Harvard’s life. The bright and shining center of Harvard’s life, ever since he’d turned around and seen Aiden and thought, That boy looks sad, and wanted nothing but to give Aiden everything. Finding Aiden and being too young to understand what he’d found. Only knowing Aiden was necessary to him and wanting Aiden there always. Of course he loved his best friend, of course he did. That was always such an absolute truth that Harvard could never question it.

He’d been in love with Aiden the whole time.

“That’s my favorite watch,” Seiji snapped, and twisted his arm free.

So sweet!

Seiji walked back to Kings Row with a teammate by his side.

Losing Aiden would be like carving a heart out of his chest and expecting his body to stagger on as normal.

This time, I know that if I was in trouble or whatever, my teammates would come help me out. Because you came this time.”

On a night like this, at a golden moment like this one, Nicholas could almost believe his own and Coach’s dreams might come true. They might all be winners in the end.