Only Ever Yours (9 page)

She goes rigid, as if her bones are holding her hostage. I want to ask her what’s wrong, but the words are in my head and I can’t get them out, my tongue fat with drowsiness. She stands next to me again, stroking my hair softly, soothing me to sleep as if I was her own child, as if she loved me.

I dream of fields of lavender, of boys and of mothers. I dream of things I know nothing about.

“It’s pointless being here when I’m not allowed to use the machines,” I moan, stretching out on the stationary treadmill, hoping I’ll feel cooler if I lie down.

“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”

isabel is pedaling furiously on a rusted exercise bike; her hair is damp with sweat and sticking to her tomato-red face. She slows down to look over her shoulder at me and a warped robotic voice bellows from the bicycle spokes, mangling every second word. “
Go faaaaaster, you . . . idiot. You . . . but . . . but you . . . fat . . . fat . . . fat . . . Why . . . faa . . . GO FASTER
.” She picks up speed, the steel weights wrapped around her ankles blurring.

“They really need to fix that bike,” I say.

We’re in the chamber for our morning detention. A menagerie of gym equipment is squeezed into the circular sauna. It’s so small that it can just hold a treadmill, an
exercise bike and a locker to store our bags. Glowing electric heating grids line the ceiling. The walls are a 360-degree movie screen flashing inspirational images of #1 eves from previous years.

“Anyway . . .” she says. The screen has melted into a magnifying mirror, amplifying her reflection from every angle. She stares at it as if she’s trying to find her old self underneath the excess flesh. “. . . this is your last day on detention.”

I know. I’ll miss you. Will you miss me?

“I can’t remember being in here last week,” I say instead.

“I should have known something was wrong when they showed an old interview from
What kate Did Next
on the screen and you kept asking kate why her hair was so shiny.”

“I did not.”

“You did! You even told her to answer quietly because you didn’t want ‘the others’ knowing the secret too.”

“What others?”

“Exactly, you lunatic,” she says with a wheezing laugh, and I smile. Being sick was worth it if it means that we might be friends again. And if she keeps working out like this, she’ll lose weight. She’ll be pretty again, and popular. We can go back to the way things were before.

“You sound better today, freeds.”

“I feel it.”

Why wouldn’t I? My SleepSound has been returned and chastity-ruth has given me an extra stockpile of supplies to make sure I don’t become sleep-deprived again. I’ve started keeping a spare tablet in a silver locket around
my neck, just in case of emergencies. I didn’t even have to take my weekly foto this morning. I got to choose an old one from my archive to post instead, so my rankings should be unaffected.

“Less talking, girls. This is not a social group.” A chastity’s voice fills the tiny room.

“Sorry.” We both squint at the mirror, wondering which chastity is hidden behind it.

“
The Eternal Fat girl!
” I say in disbelief as the mirror turns back into a movie screen. I use the frame of the treadmill to pull myself up to sitting position. “I haven’t seen this in years.”

“It’s not actually called
The Eternal Fat girl
, you know.”

I’m not listening, engrossed in the familiar story. The Wandering Fat girl travels from town to town, stealing sweets from Inheritants, shoving them in her mouth. She has no friends. She is always alone, eating and eating. “Fat girls are disgusting. Fat girls are lazy. No one will ever love a fat girl,” the voiceover repeats over and over again.

“It doesn’t even make sense,” isabel puffs, pedaling faster and faster. “Why isn’t she in School?”

“How many times have we seen this?” I ask her.

“Every day until we were seven . . .”

“And then we started Organized Recreation instead.” I finish her sentence. “You have a good memory.”

She can’t find the breath to answer as she crouches over the handle bars. An oversized gray sleeveless tee is clinging to her sweaty body, her thighs jiggling in black leggings. They must be at least three sizes too small for her.
Fat girls
should be made obsolete
. I thrust the thought away and lie back down on the belt of the treadmill, pulling my tank top up to the same height as my bra. I feel the bones of my ribcage, resting my fingertips in the cavities between them, holding my thinness to me like a comforter.

“isabel?” I say in a wheedling voice.

“Yes?”

“Can I borrow your computer?”

“Did you not get yours at breakfast? I saw chastity-ruth handing them back.”

“Mine was the only one she managed to forget. Imagine that.” Our eyes meet in the mirror. “She said she’d give it to me after class.”

“Fine.” She gives in. “It’s in the locker. Keep the protective cover on it though. I don’t want the steam to damage it.”

“They’re not toys,” I say, mocking the chastities. “They’re
expensive
.” I crawl over to the locker, wading through the heat. Grabbing the ePad, I droop back down on the belt, logging onto MyFace.

“Your inbox is at maximum capacity. Please delete some private messages immediately.”

That’s strange. I only had two saved messages when I checked my account yesterday. I click on the inbox, my jaw dropping as I scroll through icons for dozens and dozens of messages, some from months ago. Most of the recent ones are unopened and all of them have a gray blank box where the profile foto usually is. Anonymous accounts. Who would send me anonymous messages?

I put in the earbuds and click on the most recent one.

“No one likes you. Everyone wants you to die. Why don’t you just kill yourself and get it over with?” says the distorted voice. I shut it off hurriedly, my heart pounding.

The profile foto at the top of the page. It’s isabel’s face. I steal a sneaky look at her, but she’s engrossed in her workout so I click on another message, and another and another, the same gray profile image filling the screen, the same disembodied voice like an ugly wound bubbling with pus.

“You are lazy and vile and the ugliest eve in our year.”

“You make me want to vomit. You should do everyone a favor and kill yourself.”

“Everybody hates you. You are disgusting. I wish you didn’t exist. I wish you were dead.”

I turn it off. My face is pale in the black screen.

“isabel . . .”

Anxiety tightens my throat. Who could have sent those messages? They’re vicious, even for megan and the twins, and they couldn’t have been acting alone. The quantity alone negates that possibility. Did cara send any?
agyness?
Why didn’t isabel tell me what was going on?

I go cold. Does she think that I sent one?

“isabel,” I say more urgently. I sit up, shuffling to the top of the treadmill and swinging my legs over the edge, holding on to the leg of the control panel. “isabel, stop cycling and talk to me for a moment.”

“I can’t,” she pants.

“Why?”

“
What is wrong . . . you? . . . so useless . . . can’t even ride a biiiiiiike prop . . . ly? . . . back . . . biiiiike . . . you stup . . . fat . . .
”

“See?” She picks up speed again as the stuttering exercise bike screams at her.

“Are you trying to lose weight before the Inheritants come? Because who knows when they’ll be coming? You can’t trust what
they
say,” I say, emphasizing the “they” in an attempt to distance myself from megan and the twins.

Her right leg slips, and she yelps out in pain as the pedal spins around and bashes into the back of her knee.

“
. . . fat . . . stupid . . .
”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about!” I desperately want to be the antidote to all those poisonous messages. “You’re beautiful, isabel. You’re
special
. You’ve always been special. Everyone knows that.”

“Don’t say that.” She stops, ignoring the robotic shrieking. (
. . . get baaaack . . . bike . . . instant, you uuuseless fat . . .
)

“Don’t say what?” I’m bewildered. “What did I say?”

“Just stop. For once in your life, freida, can’t you
just stop
?” Her voice cuts through me. I never get anything right. I am like a faulty toy that no one will ever want. No one will ever love.

I press my trembling lips together, fixating on the screen as it transforms back into the 360-degree mirror, remaining clear despite the steaming heat. I pull up my black running shorts and stretch my legs out, displaying them to her as a reprimand, wanting her to see how thin I am now, how my leg hollows at the thigh now, like freja’s.
At least I’m thin
. isabel is staring at herself in the mirror, at the sweat patches staining under her arms and her crotch area. She clenches her fists, her jaw jutting out.

“I’m going.”

“But the hour isn’t up yet!”

“I know.” She yanks the exercise bike lever off, silencing the garbled abuse, and snaps off her ankle weights, chucking them to the ground.

“I’ll come with you.” I wince as I bash my head against the control deck of the treadmill. “Please, isabel, I want . . .”

She grabs her bag from the locker and throws that well-worn black dress on over her workout gear. She comes toward me, lavender muddled with sweat, and snatches the ePad, stuffing it into her bag. And she’s gone.

Another blast of cold air swashes through the room.

“The alarm went off,” chastity-bernadette says. “Where is isabel?” She looks around the tiny room as if expecting to find her hiding behind one of the machines.

“She had to use the bathroom,” I lie. “The kcal blockers were giving her cramps.”

“Oh, right.” She focuses her attention on me, her hooded eyelids drooping over violet-colored eyes. “Well, your hour is nearly up, freida, if you want to run along.”

She must have forgotten that we’re not supposed to use the bathroom when we’re in the chamber. That’s what happened to agyness in 6th year. She had been overprescribed ExoLax on the same day she had detention, so she was trapped in the chamber when the diarrhea hit. I always wondered why she didn’t run for the bathroom—the doors aren’t even locked. I guess it was fear that stopped her. It’s always fear. The video footage of it got
leaked somehow and it was all over MyFace within minutes. agyness, the pain imprinted on her babyish face as she tried to control herself, the shame when she failed. I tried to look away from the video but I couldn’t. Some part of me had to see it for myself. She ran and ran and ran on that treadmill, feces trickling slowly down her tiny legs, staining her polka-dot socks and neon-pink sneakers. But she was a good girl. She didn’t cry, not once.

As I’m waiting for class to begin, I idly count messy side braids. megan has moved on already, of course, to a glossy topknot, causing the others to pick fretfully at their freshly styled hair.

“Where’s isabel?” cara whispers to me, winding her braid into a low bun at the nape of her neck, and I shrug.

“All final-year eves are to congregate in the Assembly Hall immediately,” the intercom shrieks.

“Let’s go, girls.” chastity-theresa beams with delight at having class postponed. We move as one down the corridors, in the opposite direction to the garden, until we come to the Hall foyer, a white pebble-dashed circular room. In single file we walk through until there it is, space unfolding in all directions. The Assembly Hall is the biggest room in the school, with its high ceilings, expanse of floor, and a marble-lined stage extending for what seems like miles. Supposedly it was designed to be a replica of an opera house from Old-Europe, and it is very beautiful, but rarely used; they can’t afford to refurbish any wear and tear.

We’re whispering among ourselves, voices melting into the noise and restlessness. chastity-ruth climbs the marble steps onto the stage, the other chastities following and falling into a single line behind her.

“If you’re
quite
finished . . .” chastity-ruth calls out, standing by the marble podium, but no one besides me seems to hear her. The screen at the back of the stage flashes images: the traditional triquetra of the thirds; the Father of the Euro-Zone lifting steel weights as easily as if they were cardboard; another of him surrounded by adoring women; murals of Adam and eve, the first woman created for man; the design laboratories, the Genetic Engineers looking up from their Petri dishes to wave at the camera; rows and rows of newly designed babies incubated in plastic wombs, waiting to hatch; a companion caring for her husband and sons—she is warm, loving, nourishing them with her beauty; then a concubine, her head thrown back in ecstasy, her lips and legs parted, ready to be ravished. We settle in our red velvet seats, the flickering images anesthetizing us into silence.

“Thank you,” chastity-ruth says. The slideshow freezes on an image of the original Father beside a bonfire of pet dogs, hundreds of mournful eyes piercing the flames as ashes float through the air like snowflakes.

“Your Ceremony is mere months away. It is imperative that the correct choices are made and that each of you is placed within the appropriate third. All the theoretical knowledge that you have been taught during your sixteen years in School must now be put into practice.” She pauses,
knowing we are hanging on her every word. “Another element is to be added to your timetable. You will be introduced to the ten Inheritants that were born the same year that you were designed, the very men for whom you were created.”

At the mention of the word “men,” high-pitched chatter and laughter fills the vast Hall.

“Told you so,” megan says to anyone who will listen, and I swivel in my chair, searching for isabel.

“Will you be nervous? The first time we meet the Inheritants?”

“No.” isabel had just had a growth spurt, her legs and arms gangly, like pieces of elastic that had been stretched too far. “Why would I be?”

“They’re boys.”

“They’re just people,” she reasoned. “I bet they will be more nervous than we are!”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t worry, freida,” she said softly. “You’re great. They’ll all like you. I know they will.”

Dozens of hands fly up into the air, waving frenziedly at chastity-ruth. She leans over to chastity-anne. “You need to control this. Up their Organized Recreation dosage today.” The other chastity nods in agreement.

“I will answer a few select questions,” chastity-ruth says. “You may go first, #767.”