The Book Eaters(54)
“I know.” She stood too fast and knocked the coffee table; empty beer cans wobbled. “Thanks for the invitation.”
“No problem,” he said warmly. “Come back tomorrow, if you want.”
“You don’t have to invite me here because you feel sorry for me,” she said, suddenly and uneasily defensive. “I’m a bride, and I’m lucky. This might not be the life I expected when I was little, but it’s better than a lot of people get.”
“I didn’t say anything about feeling sorry for anyone,” he said, and she couldn’t read his expression. “I just get bored playing on my own, that’s all. So you’re welcome to come break up my boredom.”
“Bored?” she said, floored into forgetting her pique. “Of playing games?”
“Anything is boring if it’s all you’ve got.” His sweeping gesture took in the small room with its stacks of comics and video games and wire-tangled technology, but she knew he was encompassing more: his Family, hers, all of the Family. Book eater life. “I eat more novels in a year than most humans will read in a lifetime and yes, I’m bloody bored.”
“There’s worse things than boredom,” she said.
His face fell. “I know. I know there are. My sister, she used to say…” Jarrow blew a sigh and said, “Never mind. I dunno what I’m talking about. Come back tomorrow, if you want.” He waved a hand vaguely. “Only if you want to.”
She curled and uncurled her fists. “Why are you being kind to me?”
“I’m not,” he said uncomfortably. “You’re a guest, I’m a host, and I have games. This is just basic courtesy.”
Basic courtesy. Somewhere along the way, she’d stopped being deserving of that, or other people had stopped bothering to give it.
“I’ll think about it.” Devon slunk out in a rush, feeling confused and tired.
The corridors drifted by in a blur, her thoughts whirling and keeping her distracted. She didn’t understand their interactions—either what Jarrow wanted from her, or she from him. In a world dominated by Family ties and nothing else, the concept of friendship baffled her.
Jarrow himself baffled her, full stop. He oozed discontent and she couldn’t understand what he had to be discontented about; he was open and easygoing, but also impenetrable and oddly inflexible. He was too much work, and the whole thing was more stress she didn’t need.
And yet, that evening, Devon found herself turning over video game levels in her head. She was still thinking about puzzles and strategies when Matley came to see her for their “nightly duty,” as he referred to their attempts to conceive. Tomb Raider puzzles continued to occupy her brain as she reluctantly peeled off clothes and climbed into bed, staring at the ceiling over Matley’s shoulder.
By the time he’d left she’d thought of several solutions to try. Somewhere along the way, she’d come to a decision and cemented into the idea of returning to the games room. Sleep came swiftly after.
In the morning, more fairy tales arrived for breakfast. She disdained the offering and instead took her time showering and got dressed with unhurried slowness before picking her way toward the games room.
Jarrow said nothing about her presence when she arrived. He seemed to have expected her: beers and books waiting, controller primed. Hoodie already on, as if he’d not moved or changed from the day before.
She sat down, picked the controller up, and rested it delicately in her lap. “I’ve been thinking about that level. We’re going about it wrong.”
“Cool. Let’s have a go, then.” He flung himself back on the couch.
The next three weeks were a strange kind of duality between the unpleasant physicality of her nights, followed by the disconnected gaming of her days. Neither of them spoke about Matley, her marriage, Vic, anything; theirs was an alliance in distraction, a unified commitment to head-in-the-sand escapism.
And within that space she could be safe and happy, buried in the worlds of Lara Croft until Tomb Raider wrapped up, after which they moved on to Final Fantasy. Another vast digital world in which to get lost.
* * *
After the second month of marriage, her cycle did not appear. Devon wasn’t sure whether to be relieved for what had stopped or afraid for what came next; the misery of pregnancy, certainly, and all that reality entailed.
She opted, in the end, for resilience. Salem had her heart, and no other child would take that place. Feel nothing, care for nothing, and you could not lose anything or be robbed.
The doctor who came to Easterbrook Manor was a human man. Devon knew this not from the way he looked or walked or anything else he did, but because he could write. In front of her very eyes he produced a clipboard with various forms, and began filling them out. She craned her neck to see the letters he scrawled.
Devon Fairweather. Female. Age 23. The pen wobbled and scratched its way across the paper while she stared. Devon had attempted to write, like all book eaters did when they were young. And like all book eaters, her attempts had devolved into illegible scrawls. Carry on too long and the muscles would cramp from wrist to forearm, black spots appearing in your vision.
If the doctor was aware he performed a miracle, he did not show it. When the writing of forms was completed, he asked her to come closer while they worked their way through a basic physical exam: checking blood pressure, measuring height and weight, listening to her heart.