Page 40 of Us in Ruins
Astrid flicked an eyebrow, triumphant. “Say what you want about me, but you’ll never be half the archaeologist I am.”
Tears welled, hot and heavy, in Margot’s eyes. Astrid’s face blurred. Margot opened her mouth to speak, but it wasn’t her voice she heard.
“That’s a lot of hot air from someone with nothing to show for themselves,” Van said as he suddenly stepped beside Margot. He must have heard them fighting halfway across the hall. “But what else would we expect from an Ashby? Your family legacy can only get you so far.”
Red poured into Astrid’s cheeks. “I’ll have you know, I’m a Pliny Junior Scholastic Award winner.”
“Congrats on your studies.” Every word was level, precise. The only thing that betrayed Van’s fraying temper was a glint in his eye. “Let’s see how that helps you find something worth being remembered for.”
“At least I have actually studied,” Astrid said. Her eyes sliced toward Margot. “That’s more than some of us can say.”
Margot wiped the back of her hand across her cheek. It came back wet. She wasn’t going to stick around just to get ridiculed. She raced out of the exhibit hall.
Astrid’s voice trailed after her, saying, “Of course. Run away like you always do!”
She did. She slumped onto the first stiff stone bench she found, tucking her head against her knees and wrapping her arms around her head like a shield. Vaguely, she registered Van sinking down next to her. The threads of his too-big T-shirt from the thrift shop brushed against her skin.
Once the tears came, they didn’t stop. There was no way to swallow them down or hold them in. They raked through her, tsunami tides against the shore.
Van didn’t say anything while she wept. But he also didn’t move. Didn’t shy away from the storm front.
The back of his hand was so close to hers that she froze, scared he’d feel the tremble under her skin—the anxious adrenaline, the fear of never being enough. There was an uncertain pull to him, like he was a current in an endless ocean that could either guide her to high ground or cast her to sea. She wasn’t sure which, but the memory of his words called to her, a lighthouse in the mist. Actually, I was going to say brilliant.
A bitter laugh rattled out of her. “Sometimes, I swear I don’t even know why I came here if everyone hates me so much for doing it.”
Van rested his elbows on his thighs, twining his fingers together. He stared at the polished floors rather than at her. “You know exactly why you came here, and no one hates you.”
Had he participated in a completely different conversation back there?
A garbled noise erupted from Margot’s throat in protest. “Astrid would sooner throw me in the snake pit than ever have to work on a project with me again. Dr. Hunt almost assuredly regrets bringing me here in the first place. My dad—”
She hadn’t said actual words to him since their call. Just a thumbs-up emoji when he asked if she’d received her flight itinerary. What was there to say?
Van picked at the cuticle of his thumb. “Far fewer people hate you than hate me. Trust me. I’m not... always the most agreeable. Or so I’ve been told.”
“Well, everyone who hated you is dead.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
Margot winced. “That’s not—sorry.”
“It’s fine.” He peeked at her out of the corner of his eye. “It’s true. Probably hated me until they took their last breaths.”
“Doesn’t that, I don’t know, bother you?” she asked.
Van nodded, a noncommittal bob. “There are worse things in life than not being liked. People are going to come to their own conclusions,” he said. “What people think usually says more about them than it does about me.”
She wanted to agree, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Maybe, she thought, biting into her cheek to keep from saying anything out loud, I just want him to like me. Because she wanted everyone to like her.
Van didn’t need other people’s approval, and somehow he still managed to get it. He had that whole broody and irritable thing going for him. He was Van Keane, after all.
Margot peeled her gaze away from him, ashamed of what he’d find if he looked too closely back into the blues of her eyes. She finally noticed where she’d run to, and suddenly she was rendered speechless.
Every inch of the walls had been lined with scrolls, delicate parchments handled with steady hands, next to stone tablets and chipped granite, stained with ink. Sconces protected lit candles, dotting the shelves with orbs of orange light.
Statues in varying states of disarray had been perched on smooth pedestals like Mr. Potato Head pieces—washboard abs with no head attached, the bald pate of some stoic emperor, a woman sliced in half down the middle: half a smile, half a dress, half a heart. At the far end of the hall, a Roman legionary stood with his hand on a blade and his head bowed beneath a helmet. Not an exact replica of the guardians but close enough to chill Margot to the bone.
“This room gives me the creeps,” she said, shivering.