Only Ever Yours (19 page)

“Where’s isabel?” cara asks at breakfast the next morning, pointing at isabel’s customary place, now empty.

“That’s weird.” daria turns to me. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” I answer coldly, despising the weakness in me that still wishes I did.

“And who cares?” megan smiles at me. “Right, freida?”

“Exactly,” I say, and I feel an irrational chill. Grabbing my cream blazer from the back of my chair, I wrap it around me like a shield.

“I heard they had to force-feed her through a tube inserted into her stomach.”

“I heard they had to tie her down while chastity-anne shoved kcal enhancers down her throat.”

“No, I heard . . .”

“. . . I heard . . .”

The following Monday, isabel returns to class, although rumor has it she’s still banned from the Nutrition Center so they can monitor her food intake more carefully. You can see a hint of flesh gradually reemerging, like she’s growing a new skin. She’s beautiful, but it’s a faded beauty now, as if she’s been washed too many times. It makes it easier for me, in a way. It lends her an unfamiliarity.

Beep. Beeeeep
.

I accept the VideoChat request, placing my ePad on my bedside locker and squatting on the floor. megan told me the angle is more flattering this way.

“Hey.”

megan has called a conference VideoChat with me and the twins so liz and jessie can tell us their latest plan to waste time before bedtime.

“I think we should each send her a MyFace message,” jessie declares.

“Who? isabel?” I smile at my image on the screen to check that I don’t have lipstick on my teeth. jessie copies me, dabbing at the corners of her lips.

“Ooh, I love your nail art,” I say, catching sight of her houndstooth-printed nails.

“Oh, thanks!” A compliment from me is worth having these days. “I got it done today.”

“Can we forget about nail art? Let’s not get . . .” megan pauses, staring at me intently through the screen. She knows what I’m trying to do. “. . . distracted.”

“What kind of messages?” she asks the twins, giving them full responsibility, or blame in case of a mishap.

“Well, we didn’t think that it’s fair that she’s wasting perfectly good Compound funding,” jessie says piously. “And we think she should be aware of how we feel.”

“What do you think, freida?” megan applies more lip gloss, until her mouth resembles an oil slick.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I asked you first.”

I shift away from the camera, sitting on the cold tiled floor and stretching my legs out in front of me, ignoring the throbbing as blood flows back into my limbs. I adjust the screen to get rid of the glare from the overhead lamps. The screen is divided into three squares, each face within a square, all waiting patiently for my reply.

“It seems a bit cruel,” I admit, and the twins frown in disappointment.

“It’s only a joke!” liz says.

“It would be funny.” jessie pouts, sticking her lower lip out.

“I totally get it. You were friends for such a long time. It is very freida to feel loyal to her,” megan says. I’m not sure if “very freida” is a compliment. “Especially after the way she treated you.”

“What do you mean—the way she treated me?”

“Come on, freida. Everyone was talking about it, saying how you didn’t deserve to be treated like that. It was all anyone could talk about for ages. Obviously we
were all on your side,” she rushes to reassure me as my lips become pinched. “I just think it’s amazing how forgiving you are. Especially when she clearly doesn’t give a shit about you.”

I feel a hot flush of humiliation at the thought of everyone talking about how I had been exiled like a leper. I picture them all on VideoChat, listing my faults, deciding which one of my many deficiencies it must have been that made isabel give up on me.

“Let’s do it,” a strange voice says.

“Oh, freida, are you sure?” megan asks, but her eyes are dancing with excitement. “Don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“It’s only a joke, right?” that voice says again.

The twins take out their eFones, logging onto MyFace and recording a private message for isabel . . .
dead
 . . .
everyone hates you
 . . .
worthless
 . . . They erupt into fits of giggles and cut the message short.

“You two are useless!” megan laughs with them. “You can never keep a straight face.”

“You think you’re better? Prove it!”

“No.” megan points at the camera. Pointing at me. “You’re next.”

isabel’s information is still saved as a short cut so it instantly logs onto her MyFace account. Her page is empty; no one has posted anything publicly in months. She might as well be dead.

“You don’t have to do this,” megan says again in a soft voice. “I know how much you care about her.”

I look at her sharply. Is she implying that there is something unnatural about my friendship with isabel?

“I don’t care about her that much.” I’m normal. I need them to know that I’m normal. “I never think about her.”

“Too busy thinking about Darwin!” jessie teases, and I nod eagerly.

“Your turn then.” megan’s eyes narrow with a hint of challenge and I have to remind myself of isabel, drifting away from me all year. Our friendship was my life buoy, the only thing keeping me alive, and she snatched it away from me without a moment’s hesitation. Something hardens in me, like cement drying around my heart.

I don’t care. I don’t care about her either.

“What’s going on with you and isabel?” Darwin asks, his eyes boring into mine. He rubs his jaw and his fingers make a scratching sound against the stubble.

“Did you not shave this morning? When you knew we would have Heavenly Seventy?” I tease. “How inconsiderate of you.”

I lean back, my shoulders resting against the mirrored wall of the cupboard, displaying my body to him. Momentarily distracted, he touches the distressed endings of my white cut-off shorts before backing away.

“I’m being serious.” He frowns. “What’s going on with isabel?”

“What are you talking about?” I mumble, folding my chin into my chest and staring at my daisy-print sandals.

“I heard what you said about her when she came into class.”

“I didn’t say anything.” I sound petulant. “I just agreed with liz.”

“You agreed with liz when she said that isabel was defective and should be sent Underground for testing.” He sounds as if he’s tired of this. Tired of me. “Look, liz is a bitch, I know that. But you’re not.”

“liz is a friend of mine,” I say, hiding my joy that he thinks she’s a bitch. That’s one less girl I have to worry about. “You don’t know what isabel has been like.” My treacherous voice cracks a little and he places his hands on my bare shoulders and massages gently. “This isn’t like you, freida.” He moves his hands up, his fingers grazing against my hair at the nape of my neck. He’s right. It isn’t like the freida I’ve been pretending to be when I’m with him, the freida that I want more than anything to become. He leans forward, pressing his forehead against mine.

“It hurts less this way.” For once, it seems the truth makes me more likable.

“I knew there had to be a reason,” he says quietly. “You’re a good person, freida.”

I rest my head on his shoulder so he can’t see my face. A good person wouldn’t have left that message on isabel’s MyFace. He unravels my arms from around him and takes a couple of steps back. He leans against the opposite mirror and touches the silver buckle on his belt. For a moment I think he’s going to open it, slide it off, unbutton his jeans. Let them drop to the floor and pull that frayed T-shirt over
his head. Ask me if I wanted him to stop, but I wouldn’t.
I wouldn’t
.

“freida?”

“Yes?” My voice is squeaky. I cough. “Yes.”

“I just wanted you to know I . . .” He stops, taking my arms and pulling me closer, molding his hard body into mine. “I like you, freida. I really like you.”

For a brief moment I feel happiness surging inside me. As we kiss, I whisper his words over and over to myself.
I like you, I like you, I like you
. Does he like me enough to choose me? Does he like me enough to take me away from all this and make me a Judge’s companion?

This is happening too fast. Why is he saying all these things? It’s too soon.

Why does he like you? There must be something wrong with him if he likes you.

But it isn’t you he likes, is it? It isn’t the
real
you. If he knew the real you, he would leave. Just like isabel did
.

“You okay?” he asks, the words falling from his mouth into mine.

“Of course,” I reply, and I smile, knitting this mask into my skin.

June

Four weeks until the Ceremony

“Are you in love with him?”

This is my fifth VideoChat with megan in the last forty-five minutes. My elbows are chafing from propping myself up on my bed to talk to her.

“Because if you are in love with him,” she says, “you can tell me. We can fix this. I won’t tell any of the others.”

“I’m not in love with him.” I roll on my side and position the ePad into the crook of my elbow. “Ugh, did you see what miranda was wearing today?”

“Slut-tastic, I know. Now don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not changing the subject.”

“You’re in love with Darwin.”

“I told you, I’m not.”

“If the chastities find out that you’re in love with him, you are going to be in big trouble.”

“The other girls are having sex before marriage and . . .” Her full mouth curves into a gleeful smile and I add hastily, “megan, I’m not in love with him. I was just saying that the Heavenly Seventy girls are obviously having sex with the . . .”

“There are no rules about sex, just guidelines.”

Guidelines I’m still struggling to make sense of. If you want to be a companion, you won’t have sex before marriage. No one wants a girl that puts out before marriage, except that they sometimes
do
want a girl that puts out before marriage, but only if she’s going to be a concubine. It all depends on what type of girl you are. And we can’t even be sure what type of girl that is until we are told by the men at the Ceremony. Are they making up the “guidelines” as they go along?

“If you’re not in love with him, why are you being so secretive about your Heavenly Seventy sessions?”

“I’m not being secretive.”

“Yes, you are. You’re being just like isabel used to be. Do you want to end up like her?”

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, maybe it’s the craving for SleepSound or maybe it’s just the reference to isabel, but I don’t think I can take another minute of her.

“I’m exhausted, megan. I’m going to get some sleep.”

“But it’s only 8:30. And I—”

“I’m exhausted,” I interrupt, and her cheeks suck in with annoyance.

“Yes. Better get some sleep. We wouldn’t want a repeat of that unfortunate fainting incident,” she replies nastily. “So embarrassing.”

She ends the chat session, the ePad emitting a low beep. Information is currency in the School, and I’m withholding. I set my chat status to unavailable and place the ePad on the ground beside my bed.

I should call her back. I’ll regret that tomorrow.

I fold the pillow over my head, wondering what would happen if I held it over my mouth, pressed the life out of myself. I could sleep forever. Time passes and passes and I can feel anxiety rising in me like a fever. I shouldn’t have been antagonistic with megan. To lose one best friend is unfortunate; to lose two would be reckless. Who would I sit with at lunch? The thought seems so ridiculous that I burst into laughter, giggles falling into my lap as I stay coiled in a ball, gripping my knees with my arms, trying to keep myself in one piece.

I can’t
.

I reach into my bedside locker. Nothing. I threw it all away to please him.

I need something. Anything.

Darwin hates drugs
.

He’ll never know.

I climb out, looking left and right, creeping down the corridor. The doors are open as always, but no one sees me,
their faces lit by the glow from their ePads, compulsively updating their MyFace statuses to prove they’re alive.

“What do you want?” christy guiltily brushes the crumbs of a half-eaten chocco bar off her sheets. She sits up, pulling her satin kimono tighter around her soft belly.

“SleepSound,” I say. “You owe me, remember?”

Back in my own room, I swallow the tablet.
Oh, how I missed you, I missed you
. The meds work faster than I remember, shimmering through my system. I lick my lips, feeling every muscle in my body sag into the soft, soft blanket. The twitching thoughts slow down, drifting across my mind like shadows.

I can see Darwin and me, Husband and companion, taking our rightful place in the Euro-Zone society. He in his future role as Judge, me by his side, dispensing smiles like favors to my former sisters. They will have to accept me then.

But I’m not safe yet.

The morning dawning from the light-lamps is niggling at my eyelids. I rub my eyes, the inside of my head feeling as if it has been coated in glue, and use the hair band digging into my wrist to tie my knotted hair back. Yesterday’s jeans feel as if they have melted through the top layer of my skin, and I tug at them to loosen their grip on my clammy body. I can hear the low buzzing of activity, all the other eves getting ready for the day ahead. I don’t want to get out of bed. I’ve slept for more than ten hours and I’m still exhausted.

In the changing room I tell the PSP to style me however it wants today. I don’t have the energy to put an outfit together myself. The computer screen turns semi-reflective again and I can see the makeup smeared all over my face, smudges of mascara and eyeliner ringing my
bloodshot eyes. I skim my cheeks with my fingertips, feeling a crepe of dried sweat laced across them.

I peel off the sticky clothes, shove them into the chute and step into the changing room. The laser burns across my body, tousling my hair into soft waves, painting my lips a punchy neon pink. It’s very pretty, a nice contrast to the outfit that has been selected for me: tight pleather sleeveless waistcoat over black skinny jeans, with buckled shoes so pointy I could use them as a weapon.

“Come on!” freja urges me, eye-wateringly skinny in a violet one-shouldered dress.

“Sorry.” I dash into line, marching to the dining hall for breakfast, mechanically going through the routine. Line. BeBetter buffet. chastity-anne.

“I’ll take my SleepSound today.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I thought you said you didn’t need it anymore.”

I shrug, waiting in silence until she hands over the test tube.

“Hey, girls.” I throw my studded bucket bag at my feet and slide my tray onto the table. Pretending to get something out of my bag, I slip the SleepSound out of the test tube and into my locket, instantly feeling calmer.

“What are you wearing?” cara asks, her voice surprised.

“Not my usual style, I know,” I say, straightening up and lifting the lid to examine today’s lo-carb option. “The PSP chose it.”

“But we were supposed to be matching!” cara says. I look up to see that she, megan, the twins, gisele and
daria are dressed in prom dresses with sweetheart necklines, all cinched at the waist and stopping just above the knee.

“Wow. You look like companions,” I say, pulling at the studded black bracelets littering my wrists.

“Well, if the Crimson Crew can be so obvious . . .” jessie gestures at them, two tables away from us, all wearing red-and-black laced corsets tucked into black skinny jeans identical to the pair I have on.

“I tried to tell you about it last night, but you said you were too tired to talk. I didn’t want to bother you.” megan sips her protein shake carefully as not to get any stains on her dress, tangles of pink roses on cream silk. “Anyway, girls, the rest of us look so pretty. Such a good idea!”

Our table looks as if a rainbow vomited on it. cara is in emerald green, gisele in primrose yellow and daria in royal blue. jessie’s dress is lilac polka dots on white silk and liz has white dots on lilac silk. And I’m the black cloud in the middle, threatening rain. megan looks at each of them in turn, bathing them with her undivided attention, before she skims over me, unseeing.

She’s cold with me all day, although it’s nothing so obvious that anyone other than me would notice. If I mentioned it to cara or one of the others, they would tell me not to be silly, that I’m “too sensitive.” But I know. I overcompensate, my voice too loud, too shrill, too much. The others wince as I laugh manically at one of megan’s jokes during dinner.

“It wasn’t that funny,” she says, her body ever so slightly turned away from me, her eyes meeting everyone else’s but mine.

It’s the same all week. There are bursts of laughter that quiet down when I come near. A volley of message alerts beeping, like a round of gunfire, but my eFone remains silent.

“What’s so funny?” I ask as the twins convulse with laughter. We’re waiting for chastity-bernadette to arrive at class. jessie is sitting on liz’s lap, the two sharing a set of earbuds and watching something on liz’s eFone.

“Nothing,” they chorus, liz angling the fone away from me so I can’t see.

“It’s nothing,” cara reassures me. “Just a foto of candy Carmichael after her implants burst. You’re being too sensitive.”

I lie awake every night analyzing what happened that day, wondering if I
am
being too sensitive.

I asked megan earlier what time it was and she didn’t answer; maybe she didn’t hear. She did say thanks when I admired her sweater . . . but then she threw it in the garbage at lunchtime saying it was “a bit tacky.” She was the only one who didn’t laugh at my chastity-bernadette impression . . . she didn’t even look up from her desk. She walked past without saying hi in the corridor . . . but she said afterward that she didn’t see me. How could she not have seen me? . . . Maybe she didn’t see me . . . But how could she not have seen me?

Around and around I go, until I’m forced to pull my locket open to find a little relief. I try to make sure it is
always full now, charming the chastities into giving me an extra half at night, bargaining with christy to give me her SleepSound. I break off a bit of a pill. Just a quarter. Just to help me sleep. To take the edge off.

“I love your dress, jessie,” I say at breakfast the next morning.

“Thanks!” She smiles, pulling the drawstring on her cerise T-shirt dress tighter. “Pink is my favorite color.”

“I thought blue was,” megan cuts in quickly. “Remember last night?”

“Yes!” jessie says, turning away from me. “She looked amazing when she wore that blue shift.”

“No, I preferred the mauve wrap dress she wore for lunch with her friends,” gisele argues, the conversation turning to the newest episode of
What kate Did Next
that aired the night before.

“Did you all watch it together?” I say in a higher-pitched voice than I intended.

“Yeah.” jessie shrugs. “megan called a conference VideoChat.”

“You never watch
What kate Did Next
,” liz points out as I bite my lip. “You always say it’s stupid.”

I would have liked to have been asked though. I stir my now cold porridge halfheartedly, listening to yet another conversation where I’m unable to join in.

megan is at her dazzling best, never letting her charm drop for one moment.

“Your eyebrows are the
best
,” she coos at cara.

“Those sequined shorts are the
best
,” she tells freja, begging her to borrow them later, “although they probably won’t even fit me. You are so skinny. Jealous!”

“I like your makeup,” she says, sitting on the edge of liu’s desk and peering closely at her face. “But then I really love
pale
skin, don’t you? It’s the
best
.”

The next morning everyone has returned to wearing pale makeup, the trend of fake tan and bronzer finished as quickly as it began. And although I keep reminding myself that Darwin prefers my skin tone and that it only matters what men find attractive, I know all I want is for megan to say she thinks I’m pretty. Just once. She is always laughing, always talking, always the center of attention, burning so bright that I feel myself shriveling when she is near.

“megan’s in a good mood,” Isaac says during our Interaction, his beady eyes staring at the flash of skin in her cowl-backed jersey dress. She’s a few seats away from us and I watch as she reaches out a hand to pick at a fleck of dust on Darwin’s shoulder, brushing it away proprietarily.

“Yes,” I say, attempting to smile.

Maybe if I’d worn a different dress, I think that night when sleep eludes me once again. If I had worn something a bit tighter . . . I told the PSP. Why doesn’t it listen to me? Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me? . . . And I told chastity-hope to get me more of that skin-lightening cream for Beauty Therapy. I don’t care if it will blister . . . If isabel hadn’t . . . I don’t care anyway . . . What was Darwin laughing about? He kept asking if I was “all right,” saying
that I seemed in a weird mood . . . Can he tell that I’m taking SleepSound again? I only took it last night because I couldn’t sleep. I’m not going to take any more tonight. I don’t need it . . . I’m not taking more tonight. I’m sure megan looked straight at me when she told liu her pale skin was amazing.
I’m not taking it tonight
. Am I being overly sensitive? Am I? Am I? Am I?

I creep through the sleeping corridors and shake christy awake. She points at her bedside locker sleepily. I grab the precious meds, replacing them with my kcal blockers. I’m not hungry these days anyway.

“freida!”

I open one eye reluctantly. freja is standing at the cubicle entrance, staring at me. “It’s breakfast time. Why are you still in bed?”

Cursing, I wave at her to go ahead without me. Ten minutes later I’m dressed in a tangerine minidress with a racer back and hurrying to the Nutrition Center as fast as my tan wedge sandals will allow.

Line. Buffet. A futile debate with chastity-anne about the possibility of prescribing me more SleepSound.

I turn and there’s a sea of faces. Where are the girls? Our table is empty. I walk around searching for them, feeling as if everyone in the Nutrition Center is watching me.

“There you are.” I find them at last. “Why aren’t you at our usual table?”

“Felt like a change,” megan says without looking at me, siphoning some of cara’s SlimShake into an empty glass. “Thanks, doll!” She smacks an air-kiss by her cheek.

She, cara, gisele, daria, freja, and the twins are all crammed around the smaller table, bumping elbows with each other as they eat.

“There’s no room left.” I look back at our usual table, still empty. “Maybe we could—”

“Girls!” megan screams over me. “I totally forgot to tell you that I’m in the final six for that competition I entered. Do you remember? The one where I might win a VideoChat styling session with kate?”

“kate herself?” daria says, clutching at megan’s hand in excitement. “No way!”

I shift from one foot to the other, my tray weighing me down, but none of them looks at me so I trudge back to the empty table to eat breakfast alone.

That evening I take two SleepSound tablets as soon as the lights are dimmed for nighttime, but I awake with a start at 3:00 a.m. In the mirrors, the shadows around my eyes look like bruises. There is nothing on TV, nothing new to look at on MyFace, so I just lie there for hours,
thinking, thinking, thinking
, waiting for the dark to thaw into the morning.

In class the next day, and the day after that, there is no seat left for me in our usual row, no space at our table in the Nutrition Center. I have to sit between cintia and liu, watching christy as she devours her pancakes, her belly folding into rolls beneath her too-tight vest top. I push my tray away, biting my lip so hard I can taste the metallic tang of my blood.

That night I mouth along to the Messages, sleep hiding from me once more.

I have far to go because I need to get better and better
.

It’s only three weeks till the Ceremony, I keep telling myself, but then I count the days, the hours, the minutes, and I can’t breathe. I can’t do it. I can’t survive three full weeks of her anger. There isn’t enough medication in the entire Euro-Zone that could block this out.

I loop my arm through megan’s as we walk to our final class of the day. She picks up the pace, pulling away from me.

“Your perfume is too intense,” she says. “It’s giving me a headache.”

“I’m not wearing perfume.”

“That’s your natural smell?” She swallows a smirk. “Sorry.”

I don’t flinch. I’m ready now. I’ll give her whatever she wants.

“I can’t believe you think I’m in love with Darwin.”

She slows at the mention of his name. “Well, you give the impression that you are.” She makes eye contact with me for the first time in days, and I feel dizzy with relief. “But you could tell me, you know. You can trust me.”

“I know I can. You’re my best friend, right?”

Maybe if we both keep saying it, one of us will start to believe it eventually.

“But it’s not love. Darwin and I, well, we talk about stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

We take our seats in the classroom, megan sitting to face me, green eyes hungry for information.
Just give her what she wants
.

“Everything,” I tell her eagerly. “He tells me about life in the Zone. Did you know that people go outside? The Engineers. They have to make sure that the satellites and all that are working. They have to wear protective suits and can only stay out there for short bursts of time. I don’t know; it’s kind of confusing.”

“Hmm.” Her eyes drifting over my shoulder, looking for someone more interesting.

“Don’t you think that’s interesting, megan?”

“Not really.” She shrugs. “It sounds like boys’ stuff, to be honest. chastity-ruth says that kind of thing is none of our concern.”

She turns away, and even in a classroom full of people I am alone again.

“And he told me a secret.”

“What secret?” she says, her head snapping back to me.

“I can’t really say,” I reply, starting to feel sick.

“I won’t tell anyone.” She leans forward, smiling at me as if I’m special.

“I can’t tell you, megan.”

“Fine.”

“I would if I could.”

“Sure,” she replies, and silence falls between us again. I glance around, catching everyone staring at me. They react and look away, but I know they are still watching out of the corner of their eyes. If I don’t make this right, I’m finished.

“Well, he did tell me one thing,” I say, pushing away the waves of nausea, “but you have to
promise
not to tell anyone.”

She smiles slowly, inching her ear closer to my mouth. “I promise.”

“Have you heard of female aberrants?”

“What?” she says loudly, and I shush her.

“That gene doesn’t exist in women,” she says.

“It doesn’t exist anymore. Darwin told me they identified the gene and destroyed it. Two eves fell in love before and tried to run away.”