Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

Author:Lex Croucher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

Arthur was uncharacteristically quiet when he and Sidney visited Gwen that evening. He perused her books while she went through the charade of sending Agnes away—she and Sidney gazed at each other like one of them was being sent off to war—and then simply gave her a half-hearted salute before exiting through the window.

Gwen had intended to do some reading or embroidery, but instead she found herself sitting by the fire all evening thinking herself in circles, returning to the memory of her hands on Bridget’s back; the fact that Bridget had courted a woman; that Bridget had trusted her enough to tell her that she had courted a woman; Bridget’s hands on hers, guiding her into place; the possibility that she might not have invented this pull she felt between them, that her feelings might be somewhat reciprocated. But then she pictured Gabriel’s face when she’d told him—Gabriel backing away from her like she was something repellent. She hated him for ruining something as good as Bridget.

“Incoming,” said a voice at the window, barely an hour or two later. Gwen startled; she hadn’t been expecting Arthur home for a while yet. His face appeared, hair a mess, eyes unfocused; suddenly he pitched forward and landed hard on the floor, barely reacting as bone thunked against stone. “Oops.”

It was Sidney who had spoken; he summited the sill, looking almost as drunk as Arthur, then made a hideous belching sound and clasped his free hand to his mouth.

“If you’re going to vomit, you can climb right back down,” Gwen said warningly as she rose from her chair.

“Prob’ly for the best,” he said, disappearing again. Gwen heard the sound of clumsy descent and then, after a pause, the distinct heave and splatter of vomit hitting the cobblestones below.

“I’ve died,” Arthur said dramatically from the floor. Gwen snorted.

“Not yet. But if I kill you now, I can just say you choked on your own vomit and nobody will be any the wiser.”

“Do it,” Arthur slurred. “I’m over. I’m done. And I’ve drunk—I’ve drunk all the wine.”

“In the country?” Gwen said, watching as he turned over onto his back like an elderly beetle.

“God, I really hoped I’d climbed through the wrong window,” Arthur slurred, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. “Clearly. Overcorrected. To the right one.”

“What are you talking about? Can you get off my rug?”

He turned to squint at her, looking violently unimpressed. “I know you’re you, so it’s hard, but can you at least dredge up—I dunno … one shred of human emotion? Empathy? Pity?”

“Arthur, you chose to drink too much wine. And you’re getting mud all over everything.”

“So … that’s a no, then.” He pulled himself into a sitting position with difficulty. He and Gwen noticed the blood on his sleeve at the exact same time.

“You’re bleeding,” she said bluntly.

“No, I’m not.” He rolled up his shirt and looked down at his arm. The blood was flowing quite profusely, and he had gone a very strange color; Gwen had seen that expression on somebody once already today, and couldn’t quite believe it was happening again.

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