The Loudness Of Love
The envelope had been sitting on the coffee table for eleven minutes.
Farley knew because she had checked the clock approximately forty-three times.
Nobody was allowed to touch it.
Nobody was allowed to breathe near it.
And yet somehow half the neighbourhood had managed to squeeze itself into their sitting room to watch her open it.
Her auntie was perched on the arm of the sofa despite there being absolutely no room for her there. Two cousins sat cross-legged on the carpet. Mrs Campbell from three doors down had appeared with a bottle of prosecco nobody had opened because, according to her,we don’t tempt fate. Farley’s best friend had been recording intermittently for the last twenty minutes despite Farley threatening to throw her phone out of the window.
Someone had brought patties.
Someone else had brought a cake.
Her mother had cried twice already.
And her father hadn’t sat down once.
“Dad.”
Farley looked up at him.
He was pacing behind the sofa again.
“Dad, you’re making me nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“You’ve walked past that plant fifteen times.”
“I like the plant.”
A ripple of laughter moved through the room.
Farley pushed her glasses higher up her nose and looked back down at the envelope.
ST JOHN’S COLLEGE
embossed across the front.
Her stomach turned over.
She’d imagined this moment for years.
During late-night revision sessions.
On buses.
At the kitchen table while her dad came home from another overtime shift and pretended he wasn’t exhausted.
During tutoring sessions he insisted they could afford when Farley knew perfectly well there had been months when they couldn’t.
Every practice paper.
Every exam.
Every time somebody had told her St John’s was ambitious.
Every time she’d smiled and thought,
Watch me.
Her fingers slipped beneath the envelope.
“Wait.”
Her father’s hand closed gently over hers.
Farley looked up.
“Dad.”
His expression had changed.
All the joking disappeared.
Her mother came to stand beside him.
Her dad crouched in front of her.
“Before you open that.”
“Oh God.”
“Farley.”
“Dad, please—”
“Whatever it says,” he continued, “you understand me?”
Her mouth tightened.
Because she knew that voice.
That was the voice that was going to make her cry.
“We are still the proudest parents in the world.”
The room erupted.
“Awwww!”
Farley immediately covered her face.
“Dad!”
Her mother laughed through tears.
“Don’t make me cry before I open it!”
Her father kissed the top of her head.
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“You’ve already done enough.”
That nearly did it.
Farley blinked rapidly and waved both hands in front of her eyes.
“No. No crying. Absolutely not. My mascara is twenty-two pounds.”
“Twenty-two pounds?” her father repeated.
Wrong thing to say.
Everyone laughed.
Farley tore open the envelope before he could begin an investigation into her cosmetics budget.
She pulled out the letter.
For several seconds, she didn’t read it.
She couldn’t.
The words jumped.
Her eyes moved too quickly.
Dear Miss—
Thank you—
pleased—
She stopped.
Went back.
Read it properly.
Her mouth opened.
Nobody breathed.
Farley’s eyes shot upward.
“I—”
Her mother grabbed her father’s arm.
Farley looked down again.
Once.
Twice.
Then she screamed.
“I GOT IN!”
The room exploded.
Her father caught her first.
Farley launched herself at him so hard he stumbled backward, laughing as he wrapped both arms around her.
“I GOT IN!”
She was screaming now.
Someone popped the prosecco.
Her cousins shrieked.
Her mother was crying openly.
Mrs Campbell was shouting, “I knew it! I bloody knew it!”
Everybody was talking at once.
The room became a wall of sound.
Voices.
Laughter.
Hands.
Music suddenly starting from somewhere.
Farley was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.
The noise poured through her rose-gold cochlear processor until everything began collapsing into one enormous, glorious mess.
Still grinning, she reached behind her ear.
Click.
The processor came away.
And the world softened.
Not silent.
Never completely silent.
But distant.
Muffled.
The sharp edges disappearing until laughter became vibrations and blurred noise beneath the pounding of her own excitement.
Farley closed her fist around the processor and threw herself back into her father’s arms.
She didn’t need to hear him.
She could see his mouth.
My girl.
She buried her face against his chest.
Her mother wrapped herself around both of them.
Then cousins.
Then aunties.
Then apparently Mrs Campbell too.
Farley disappeared underneath an avalanche of people who loved her.
Her acceptance letter fell unnoticed onto the carpet.
No one cared.
She had got in.
Their Farley had got into St John’s.
Thirty-seven miles away, nobody was celebrating.
Luca Seo stood on the balcony outside his bedroom with a cigarette between his fingers.
Below him, London glittered.
Not the London Farley knew.
There were no buses rumbling outside his window. No neighbour shouting through the wall. No children playing football beneath streetlights.
From here, the city existed at a distance.
Glass.
Gold.
Light.
Something to look down upon.
Luca rested one forearm against the stone balustrade and took another drag.
Behind him, his bedroom door opened.
Without knocking.
His jaw tightened.
Only one person did that.
Footsteps crossed the room.
His father appeared beside him.
Luca didn’t turn.
“You got into St John’s.”
Smoke drifted slowly from Luca’s lips.
He watched it disappear into the night.
His father placed something on the small table behind them.
“You’ll study Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Management.”
Not a question.
Luca took another drag.
“You will graduate first in your class.”
Still nothing.
His father’s gaze moved to the side of Luca’s face.
“Your grandfather graduated first.”
Luca flicked ash over the balcony.
“So did I.”
A beat.
“Do not embarrass me.”
The words barely changed his father’s tone.
That almost made them worse.
The balcony doors slid shut behind him.
Footsteps.
Then—
click.
His bedroom door closed.
Luca remained exactly where he was.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Then he finally turned.
The envelope lay on the table.
Thick cream paper.
His full name written across the front.
LUCA ALESSANDRO SEO
Beneath it, the crest of St John’s College.
He stared at it.
Years of preparation.
Private tutors.
International schools.
Interview coaches.
Summer programmes.
A donation from the Seo Foundation large enough to refurbish an entire university library wing—although everyone involved would insist that had absolutely nothing to do with anything.
Luca picked up the letter.
Read the first line.
We are delighted to offer you—
He gave a quiet snort.
“Delighted.”
He dropped it back onto the table.
Then lowered the cigarette to the page.
Held it there.
The expensive paper browned.
Curled.
Blackened beneath the glowing end.
Luca ground the cigarette slowly into the centre of the university crest.
His phone came out of his pocket.
He selected a name.
Matteo Bellini.
It rang twice.
“What?”
“Party.”
A pause.
“It’s eight thirty in the morning.”
“Congratulations. You can tell the time.”
Matteo groaned.
“What are we celebrating?”
Luca glanced down at the ruined acceptance letter.
“Apparently I’m going to St John’s.”
There was silence.
Then Matteo burst out laughing.
“You mean the university your father has been telling everyone you’re attending since you were twelve?”
“The very one.”
“Christ. What an achievement.”
“I know. I’m inspirational.”
“Where?”
Luca walked back toward his bedroom.
“Vesper.”
That woke Matteo up.
“Your father’s club?”
“No.”
“Luca.”
“My club.”
Matteo laughed again.
There were very few establishments in London where a nineteen-year-old could say that without sounding ridiculous.
Vesper was one of them.
Three underground floors beneath an unmarked Mayfair townhouse.
No sign.
No queue.
No photographs.
Membership by invitation.
Politicians entered through the private garage.
Footballers used the rear entrance.
Children of billionaires occasionally forgot ordinary people existed somewhere above ground.
“What time?” Matteo asked.
“Eleven.”
“I’ll get Cassian.”
“Do that.”
“And Luca?”
He paused.
“What?”
“Try to look excited. You’ve achieved your lifelong dream.”
Luca looked back at the smouldering hole where the St John’s crest had been.
A slow smile pulled at his mouth.
“Fuck off. You Twat.”
He ended the call.
Outside his window, London continued waking.
And somewhere across the city, a girl Luca Seo had never met was clutching the exact same acceptance letter as though it were the most precious thing she had ever owned.
For Farley, St John’s was a door her entire family had fought to open.
For Luca, it was simply another room he’d always assumed would be waiting for him.
Neither of them knew yet that they were about to walk through it at the same time.
