notverywise | (no subject)

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cameron winklevoss

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There are days when Jenny doesn't know how she ever managed to like it here. She'd say as much, anyway, though the logic still makes sense. (Of course she would have liked it. The island is exotic, beautiful, about as far from Twickenham as it's possible to get, and it isn't as if she came from a particularly good time.) It's just that, while there are times it's easier to ignore the size and limitations of this place in favor of focusing on the atmosphere, there are likewise times when the exact opposite is true, when everything feels as stifling as it did back home, when she was still just a schoolgirl, before everything turned on its head. Here as well, there's nowhere to go and nothing to do, and no way of trying to put back together the pieces of the life she left behind. In that way, it's worse than home.

Were it not for the fact that half the things on the island are apparently bloody magic (and she'll never understand that, she thinks, not in a million years, not even if it fascinated her initially), it might not be an issue at all. As it is, though, this particular day, the jukebox and bookshelf seem to both be conspiring against her, the former singing you've got me wrapped around your little finger at her as the latter is at once filled with innumerable copies of Jane Eyre upon her approach. It's more than she cares to deal with, more than she has the patience for.

She heads out of the Compound after that, in the hopes that some fresh air will do her good. Anything, really, to get away from the notion that something here knows her, knows about the life she hasn't seen fit to describe in detail to anyone. It isn't supposed to matter here, and yet it follows her around anyway; the best she can do is try to put some distance between it and herself. Not caring enough to walk all the way out to the beach, she seats herself instead on the Compound steps, concrete warm under her palms and the backs of her legs, head tipped back slightly and eyes half-closed as she draws in a deep breath. It's far better than being inside, but it leaves her distracted, so much that she almost doesn't notice someone walking up. "Hello," she says absently, when she finally registers movement, probably a few moments later than should otherwise be the case. She lowers her chin slightly, then, just a touch more serious. "I'm not in your way, am I?"

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"Oh, oh, no," Cameron says quickly, "I really don't feel madness is the answer here. Next thing you know, you'll be so far 'round the bend, you'll be calling everything normal." It's not like he's all this disdainful of the islanders, really; he just doesn't know how to handle them, the constant reassurance that he, too, will learn to be at peace here. This isn't his world, his time, anything like the way he grew up, and yes, he can adapt, it's an important trait if one's to stay ahead of the curve as he likes to believe he does, but there is a difference between keeping up and being calm. He's long managed to maintain, if nothing else, the external appearance thereof, often matched by the internal content, but here, it's all on the outside. Going mad sounds entirely possible.

"Mm, we can't have that," Jenny replies, pulling a face, as if the thought hadn't occurred to her. They shouldn't have to go hand in hand, slipping into insanity and joining the countless people here who've grown so accustomed to this that they can't see how ridiculous all of this is, but it's probably better not to take the chance; she has no desire to end up like that. Anyway, if she did, she wouldn't be able to fully appreciate any aspect of it that might wind up being appealing, because it would no longer be something new and noteworthy. That isn't a point she ever wants to have to reach. Even if she's going to be stuck here, she can try to find what benefits there are. Right now, it's just hard to see anything fitting that description. That doesn't mean that won't change. As serious as she can manage to seem, she ducks her head slightly towards him, as if imparting a secret. "I shall just have to rely on you to make sure I stay sane, then, won't I?"

It's a joke, Cameron thinks, just her teasing or having fun, but the way she comes closer gives it a weight he has difficulty explaining. "I'll do everything in my power to keep it that way," he assures her, equally mock-solemn (although staying the responsible, sane one has long been his realm anyway. It seems appropriate, even in jest). "Although my keeping a close eye on you for signs of adapting may only contribute to your deterioration. I'm told I have that effect." There's some truth in that, actually, if only because Tyler frequently finds him every bit as annoying as Cam sometimes find Ty. It's the province of brothers, of twins, to want the other around as much as he'd prefer he stay away, he thinks.

"Are you?" Jenny asks, eyebrows raising, both skeptical and amused at once. She may have only known him for a few minutes, but she has trouble believing it, her own opinion of him already formed somewhere between the time he stepped out of her way and now. As far as she can see, there'd be nothing to dislike. After a moment's consideration, mostly feigned, she shakes her head, expression resolute, as if she's made up her mind without any room for questioning. "No, I don't think that could be true at all. It'll have to not be, anyway. I'm counting on you."

"Oh," Cameron says, as if this makes all the difference. Were it not a joke, it would. He likes her sense of humor, though — wry, easy, at once accessibly familiar and enough beyond his own that he finds himself wanting to be funnier, cleverer, to keep her interest. As much as he seems calm, restrained, much of the time, competitive is his default state. He just hides it better than some. "Well. In that case, you're right, it will have not to be. I could never let a lady down — and if it means proving my brother wrong into the bargain, it's the best of both worlds."

"Your brother," Jenny repeats, a hint of a question in her voice, chin lifting with curiosity. It makes sense of his statement from a moment ago, at least — while she has no experience with siblings of her own, it seems like something one might say — and serves to keep her interested at the same time, which is, as far as she can see, an excellent combination. "That makes it two good causes in one, then. Is he here, or is it just in principle?" (It's something she hasn't let herself think much about, the prospect of someone from home showing up here, even family, the notion both warming and terrifying in one go.)

Cameron's smile doesn't falter, but something in it fades a little as he shakes his head. It's no less than it was a moment ago, but still, something's gone out of it and there is, admittedly, a pit in his stomach that wasn't there before, though God, he'd never tell Tyler that. He's more than capable of being on his own, he just never has, not like this. That was always one of the best things about them — there was always someone there who, whether he wanted to or not, understood — and now it's like something's missing, subtle but important. "No," he says, "just a matter of principle. He's not here. Although that's hardly surprising, I've always been the punctual one." It's better to make light of it, to keep smiling; there's no call to burden her.

Jenny makes a quiet sound at that, thoughtful, sympathetic, but notably unsure quite what to say. She hardly wants to make matters worse by pointing out the obvious and stating that he must be missed, but the subject is such that she wouldn't want to take it too lightly and seem dismissive when she does truly care. At least he seems to be taking it well enough, leaving her to keep smiling in turn; there's no reason to make too much of it when he doesn't, when she can't imagine what it would feel like anyway. She misses her parents, her friends, even — God help her — Danny and Helen, but she has the sense enough to know that it isn't the same. "Here's hoping he doesn't turn up too late, then," she settles on, one corner of her mouth just barely higher than the other. "It's only fashionable up to a point, n'est-ce pas?"

"Absolument," Cameron replies, huffing out a laugh. Tyler doesn't give a rat's ass about fashion; Cameron barely has the time himself, although he takes care to ensure he's presentable, at least, even here. That's a matter of principle, too. "Après un point, c'est simplement mal élevé." There's a small degree to which he is, in fact, showing off a little, but it also just seems like the natural way to respond, slipping into the language she chose, almost as if it were a new-made inside joke. There's a saying people like to dust off when one goes abroad about how people who speak two languages are bilingual; more than that, multilingual; only one, American. He prefers being able to shut that down with some manner of authenticity, although he only has a smattering of phrases here and there in German and Italian, enough to be polite, and his French has grown rusty. All the same, that one, that's a matter of pride (and language requirement courses at his prep school, but he would have pursued it regardless. He's never wanted to allow people the pleasure of viewing himself and his brother as simply jocks). It occurs to him, though, that the phrase is common enough. He smiles. "I'm sorry, that was presumptuous of me. Do you enjoy French?"

It's hard for Jenny to do anything other than light up at that, the response unexpected, but perhaps better than what she could have imagined. She hadn't given much thought to slipping in the turn of phrase, an instinct she's rarely second-guessed (awkward though it can occasionally lead to conversation being; she still remembers the way Helen first responded, even commenting on it again later), but now that she thinks about it, she wouldn't have been anticipating him to pick up on it and play along. Even her friends at home weren't quite so familiar with the language as she is, and Danny spoke it, but there was never occasion to when Helen didn't. Now, having this common ground as well, she's all the more pleased that they came across each other. "Don't apologize," she says, giving a slight shake of her head. "J'adore le français — la langue, la musique, les livres, tous."

"Je regrette à dire j'avais pas le temps pour étudier la littérature française en beaucoup du détail," Cameron admits, "mais oui, c'est une culture charmante." He laughs, breaks the moment of his own seriousness, though he's not entirely sure what's funny about it. Maybe nothing, maybe it's just that she's quite evidently pleased. "You'll forgive me if I'm partial to my own, of course, but I, I do like it, yes. Tous, comme vous avez dire." It is, he thinks, an attitude one expects of Americans anyway, that they prefer their own culture above all others, and while he's not comfortable with a certain sense of entitlement attached to such preference — with entitlement in general, though that's a topic for another time — he thinks this, perhaps, they've earned in full. But then, he may well be sentimental for a time he wasn't around to see, and at the moment, the way she smiles and a bit of pleasant conversation seems more important.

"Oh, I think most people are probably partial to their own," Jenny says simply, quick to dismiss any potential need for forgiveness. "Yours was probably more exciting than mine, c'est pas ta faute." She'd be lying to say that a part of her enjoyment at home didn't come from the contrast to Twickenham, so dull and still stuck in the past, though it at least isn't strictly that. Anyway, she can't hold it against him when he's so easily fallen into French with her, something she appreciates more than she probably should, though the fact that she does keeps her from feeling self-conscious over it. Truly, this is probably the best thing to happen to her since she arrived here, and she has no qualms about admitting as much, if only to herself. Better someone she can talk to, whom she doesn't feel like a child around, than bookshelves full of Jane Eyre and the works of C.S. Lewis, a jukebox playing songs uncomfortably familiar.

In most social situations, at least early in an acquaintance, Cameron is polite almost to a fault, grateful for those people with whom it's easy to be at ease, to make jokes, to laugh. It's very nearly excessive just now, something in his chest grown pleasantly tight at something he can't quite put his finger on until it clicks: the familiar form, a charmingly simple way to imply friendship. In that way, French is so full of traps and pitfalls, but it comes as a blessing, too, a language which makes knowing one's place with others simpler. In English, at college, there are other lingual clues, but few so straightforward; it's all guesswork, the ever-lingering question of what anyone is to anyone else. He has any number of friends back at Harvard, but it is better to say not mes amis but nos amis for this — not his friends alone, but theirs, most relationships a matter of joint custody between himself and his brother, and girls, bless them, available in no small number but rarely easy to decipher (elles lui aiment un peu, beaucoup, passionément, pour la position sociale-financiale, pas du tout). It's as freeing as it is bewildering to be Cameron Winklevoss: not Ty's brother, not the star rower, not a man of means and popularity — just Cam, just a boy talking to a girl. He misses the known, but this, too, has its charms.

"I guess that would depend on your definition of exciting," he says with a smile. "It wasn't anything especially lively. Just a quiet New England childhood. Piano, rowing, schoolwork. And then on to Harvard, for more of the same, but with bigger parties and higher stakes."

"Harvard." Jenny lifts her eyebrows, tone lilting to just this side of impressed. She's never once looked at schools abroad herself, and not just because she's certain her father would never have approved, both for price and locale, but she knows enough of it all the same to know that it means something. It's an accomplishment, to be sure, and one that makes her all the more pleased for his company. Education is something she's always respected, but lately she's found even more of a newfound appreciation for it, and the work ethic that goes hand in hand. Whether something truly comes of it or not, there's merit in that, and she'd say so, but she's well aware that she'd sound like a fool for it. She likes seeming old, but not that old. "Well, that's something. I still think you've got me beat. All I had was school. And cello, and more school." And, for a brief while, concerts and auctions and horse races and beautiful restaurants, and weekends in Paris and a ring on her finger. All of that is gone, now. Everything is. "Not even that I could do anything with, either. I was hoping for Oxford, but that's obviously not in the cards anymore." It wasn't even before she wound up in this place, but it's even farther out of reach now.

"Oh, don't say that," Cameron says quickly, a bit bashful at her tone of voice. It's a damn good school and he knows it— they chose it for a reason, after all — but it's never been about the name. He appreciates the appreciation, though, in spite of himself (better someone who understands the importance of these things than someone who doesn't care). "So far as we know, no one's stuck here for good, and when you get out of here, Oxford will still be there. It is the oldest university in the English-speaking world, I think it might outstrip a tropical vacation. And you seem very bright." Granted, Oxford takes only the best, but then, he's already been accepted. It would be nice to think he has some idea of what it takes to get in. "In any case, I suspect you were much better at the cello than I've ever been at the piano."

"Oh, I'm really not very," Jenny promises, more amused than self-deprecating. Deep an appreciation though she has for classical music, she's never been all that invested in the instrument, or at least in her own playing of it. (She still remembers looking at Danny's Lucky Hill with stars in her eyes, but that's something different, prompted more by how out of her own reach it would have been than any ambition as a musician.) "Cello was only my interest or hobby — had to be something, you know?" The words take on a wry tone, a clear repetition of something heard many times. "And anyway, I still don't know if I would have gotten in." (She wouldn't have.) "I did... well enough, I suppose, but my Latin wasn't very good."

"Well, don't tell the admissions board," Cameron says, leaning toward her with slightly lowered voice, "but I'm told Latin isn't everything." Certainly it didn't factor in with him, that never having been his strongest class. That he and Tyler both made it doesn't even feel like much of a surprise (different though they are, it feels like most schools have developed a kind of double or nothing attitude toward them). While he doesn't feel entitled, precisely, he does know that his good grades and his status as a future Olympian weighed heavily on his side, even when the institute in question was the Oxford School of Business. "You'll see. Maybe I'll even see you there. I was actually planning to go to grad school in Oxford."

"Were you?" Jenny asks, brightening somewhat, the sheer coincidence of it pleasing enough that she forgets, for a moment, that the time she comes from is different than most people here. It's a habit that will take more adjusting to on her part; after seventeen years of it speaking for itself, she hasn't yet fully developed the reflex to expect otherwise, which is, perhaps, why it still seems so noteworthy each and every time. Right now, all she really sees is that she's found someone she's connected with so easily, and it's — he's — so refreshing that the island's particulars don't seem to matter as much. "To study what?"

Cameron tips his head ever so slightly to the side, smile self-deprecating still. "Business," he says, and it's evident in his tone that he understands this isn't the most thrilling of topics for most people, least of all cultured young girls with a fondness for French literature. It's exciting in its own right, but it's easy to let it sound dull to anyone who isn't interested, and he wants not to sound dull, not when everything's so pleasant. "I was just in Henley before I came here."

It's funny how, when Jenny thinks about it, she really hasn't seen all that much at all. When she did travel, it was in company far cultured than she was used to spending time in, but even when they took her to Oxford, it was never really about her. She sees that, now. Paris, Paris was lovely, but even for a place she spent most of her life wanting to visit, most of what she remembers about it now is overshadowed by what she did there (what she gave up there). The thought one that threatens to make her blush — she isn't embarrassed about what she did, but in present company, she really doesn't need to be dwelling on that — she does her best to dismiss it, quirking a smile instead. "That must have been lovely," she says, and means it. "I've never actually been. What were you there for? Just visiting?"

It was anything but lovely, a though that leaves Cameron closed off for a moment, expression clouding over, though he forces that away as quick as he can. There's no call to burden Jenny with the way his two-fold defeat hangs over him even a few weeks later. It's too fresh still and there's no getting around that here. (If his brother were here, if Divya were here, he doesn't doubt there would be other forms of retribution suggested now they can't take to the courts — his fault for waiting, his fault for trying to find another way out and believing in the reasonable nature of human beings, even of other men his age, and thinking that might win out. For that reason alone, it might be for the best he's here on his own.)

"It's beautiful," he says instead, polite smile on his lips. "Well worth a visit, although probably less exciting for you than for me. But no, I was there for a race, actually. The Royal Regatta — my brother and I row crew for Harvard. We came up for the competition. It was... a very close race." Brutally close, like so much else seems to be these days.

The particular cliché of being attracted to athletes out of principle alone is one that Jenny has never really fallen prey to. Her interests lie in other areas, in languages and experience, art and culture and other such things. In the moment, though, she finds herself thinking that there's something to be said for it, probably because she already knows that he's traveled, that he can hold a conversation in French with her without missing a beat, that he went to Harvard and meant to go to Oxford (that level of education itself and the desire for it something she has a new-found appreciation for). Someone — and she's sure there has to be someone — must be incredibly lucky. All of that and he really is easy to look at, too. It's almost comical, how quickly she can spin him into an ideal in her own head, enough so that she'd laugh at it if not for what he's saying, her teeth pressing to her lower lip in an expression that's closer to thoughtful than a frown.

(She doesn't spend more than a moment thinking about it. Such things are no longer a priority for her, and besides, whatever she was told, she's not the girl she used to be — instead, a ruined woman, property made defective, caught in some nebulous place where no matter how she looks at it, she loses. Better not to let anything like that even matter.)

"And impressive to have gone at all, I imagine," she says, almost a continuation of his own last sentence, though there's just a hint of a question implicit in her words, her eyebrows arching slightly with it. It's prestigious in name, but it isn't as if she can pretend to know the first thing about rowing. "I'm sorry to hear, though — I'm assuming if you'd won, you would have led with that?"

In truth, he wouldn't have led with it either way, but his manner might have made it clear all the same, Cameron's expression shifting with the quiet pride and pleasure of a victory well-earned in a race closely run; he would have given himself away without having to say it. He would not, in fact, have done so unless prompted, not because he isn't proud of those races he has won — and they've won quite a few in their time, there's a reason they're known for their skill, his brother and himself — but because it's too much like bragging. There's a difference, he's long been taught, between taking satisfaction in a job well done and arrogance — better to be humble yet self-assured, looking ahead to the next race, than to swagger, weighed down by hubris and laurels won in the past.

None of that is applicable at the moment, though. With a small, mirthless, self-deprecating smile, he nods to the side. "It was a very close race," he says again, the weight of repetition on the words, and remembers that afternoon before he arrived here, the excruciating pain of hearing it heard again and again. To travel so far and achieve so little was bad enough, after all the hours and effort put into getting them there; to find Facebook waiting for them at the finish line, a length ahead of even those who had bested them athletically, that was the slap in the face. He has no desire to explain that to Jenny, though, to tell her how, yes, he always takes defeat hard, but this one was bitterer even than usual. "But thank you, no, we lost."

It doesn't matter to him by how narrow a margin of defeat this was accomplished; it's the loss itself that stings, the same whether by a meter or a mile. Still, with a slight nod, he musters up a smile. He knows well that, really, while girls like the athlete thing, they're less interested in the losses than the victories and care even less still about how he feels over the matter, particularly when he's more inclined to be sullen than to be coaxed and comforted. Jenny doesn't seem like one of those girls, but that's no reason to trouble her with it on a nice day, and him a stranger. "Still, it was... delightful to have the excuse to visit England. It's always so beautiful in the summer."

"It's alright, you know," Jenny says somewhat abruptly, though it's a statement that's more inquisitive than anything else. For all that she knows about him, the rowing and the French and the education, she can't claim to actually know him, not after a few brief minutes spent sitting on the steps of the Compound, a conversation that started off in jest anyway. With the way he veers from the subject, though — from what she knows of him, it does sound like him, but she doesn't want him to have to deflect. There might be a lot she doesn't say, but listening, she has no problem with. She can be quite good at it, in fact, when there's something worth listening to; her friends from school rarely fit such a description (a past tense form of the verb, and not just because she showed up here; she doubts there'd have been much to say with the way everything played out), but Cameron does, more so than just about anyone she's met here so far. That's worth doing something about, trying to show, in her own way. When she continues, though, it's lightly, not quite teasing, but on the brink of it. "To be upset about it, if you need. I promise I won't hold it against you."

God knows she's done her fair share of moping as of late, holing up in her bedroom and staring blankly at the wall, wondering what it is she's supposed to do with herself after losing what amounts to just about everything. Admittedly, that's been less frequent since she arrived on Tabula Rasa without a reputation to carry with her, but there are still moments it hits hard — ones, in fact, like the one that sent her out here from the rec room in the first place, looking to get away from reminders of her past. Maybe he's the same, maybe he doesn't want to think about losses suffered, but the least she can do is offer. It's a boat race, not an entire life with any and all prospects gone. She might have been told shortly before showing up here that she couldn't be a ruined woman when she isn't a woman at all, but she still feels, despite that, like the description would be an accurate one.

Something about that — the words or her tone or the offer or the girl herself — sends a shudder through Cameron, unexpected, which is in itself frustrating somehow. He bites his tongue though there aren't any words he's holding back, no response he's formulated, not yet. It wasn't, after all, just the race. The race itself was bad enough, the narrowest of defeats, one he went overseas for — dragged his parents, dragged Divya, and yes, they wanted to be there, but they made the effort and this is what he gave them in return (and what does that say about the future, about their place in the Olympics and what they'll be able to accomplish there). The race was a miserable affair, and time and distance have done nothing to change that, a fact he suspects has as much to do with his inability to keep in practice here as with the loss itself, since he's failed before. Taken it hard every time, but still, it's survivable. Usually you just look ahead to the next one, work a little harder or a lot, spend time slaving away in the practice room, hours and hours, surfacing to irritated voicemails from girlfriends who get it, they get it, they don't at all. Here, though, it's nothing but empty hours and trying to keep his hand in any way he can, which, this early on, isn't much at all, and he needs the physical exertion to get it all out of his head.

But it isn't the race. He could get over that, given a week or so (he'll do better next time). It's the other losses adding up — Facebook at Cambridge, Oxford, the London School of Economics, all across the country, anywhere he goes from here on out, even on this little island in the middle of nowhere. It follows, it chafes, and he remembers his brother's words and knows Tyler was right. That Tyler was always right, even when Tyler was wrong. How can life work like that? He won't compromise his code of honor just because the world is full of thieves, but how can a man go on in a world like that, when all it promises is that the future will continue to be a string of defeats and the reminder of them at every turn?

He gives Jenny a weak smile, grateful for that little scrap of kindness. It's strange. Everyone's so kind here (everyone's so unlike the very world he's not sure he understands anymore), but it's with the same easy politeness he always exhibits. This is a bit more personal. He doesn't know how to explain it to her, though, that there's so much more to it than rowing down the Thames and losing by a boat length, that there's so much inside his head he can't give voice to, not least because it isn't her problem and he should be able to carry it alone (at least when he was home, he knew Ty knew what all the words were, even when he wouldn't say them). "Thank you," he says. "That's very kind of you. No, it's... it... was upsetting, yes. You know how it is sometimes when one small bad thing happens and then another and then a, a slightly larger one and... things that would have bothered you before and then passed, they kind of seem like the end of the world?" His mouth quirks a little higher on one side, brow jumping, and he shrugs. "It'll pass."