PODs (27 page)

“Go.” It was lunch hour and George sat across from me at the fake-wood table. Trays clattered and silverware clinked together. I could hear people crunching their food at the table next to us, and boisterous laughter from a group of boys across the room. The sounds made my head pound.

“No.”

“Eva, go. You said yourself he’s a nice guy. You should go out again. You never know what might happen.”

“Would you? If I fixed you up with one of my teacher friends, would you go?”

He didn’t answer me. He looked down and drew circles on the tabletop with his finger.

“That’s what I thought.”

It was cold. I shivered and wrapped my coat tighter around me as I sat with my back to the fence, leaning against it. I knew he was there before he spoke. I stood and turned to face him.

“I thought you’d give up on sitting out here every night, Evangelina.”

“And I thought you’d have come to your senses before now.”

“Eva, you are so stubborn.”

“I’d watch calling people stubborn, David. They might tell you the same thing. How do you know I’ve been here?”

“Because I’ve been here every night watching you.”

“And you said nothing?”

“I thought you would give up. Have a life with someone on the other side of the fence. A real life.”

“Well, David, there’s one problem with your thinking. A person doesn’t get to choose who they fall in love with. Fence or no fence.” I sighed. This wasn’t how I had imagined our reunion would go. “You lied to me. When you said you were leaving.”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“I didn’t believe you. I knew you were still here.”

“I know.”

“Weeks of me sitting here. Crying over you. Hurting. And you just watched? Why? Why didn’t you see that I don’t want anyone else? Why didn’t you come to me? And why did you decide to come out of the shadows and meet me tonight?”

“I came out to meet you tonight because I couldn’t see you hurting anymore. And because you haven’t been coming as much and I was afraid that you were forgetting—”

“But that’s what you just said you wanted!”

“I know I said it, but I don’t want it. George told me about the other guy. What’s his name? Greg?”

“Craig.”

“Yeah. I couldn’t stand the thought of you being with him.”

“You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to be with me. Is that it, David?”

“You’re half-right. I don’t want anyone else to be with you. You’re wrong when you say I don’t want you. I
do
want you, Eva. But there’s a problem with us being together. I can’t give you what you want, what you need. We’ll always be separated.”

“You don’t know that.”

“So how long? How long do we wait before we realize things aren’t going to change? When do we call it quits, Eva?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know any more than you, but I think it should be a mutual decision. We need to communicate. Tell each other what we’re feeling. Our thoughts and fears.

“Look, you said you didn’t feel like you knew me. So I wrote these for you,” I said, pushing the stack of letters I’d written through the gaps in the fence. “Read them. Make a decision one way or another. I’ll be here tomorrow night. If you don’t come, I’ll know it’s over and I won’t come back.” I took a shuddering breath. “I hope I see you tomorrow, David.” I turned and walked home.

I walked to the fence the next night. I didn’t run. I didn’t rush. I wasn’t even that excited or nervous about what I’d find. I was resigned. He’d be there and I’d be happy, but there’d always be a hurt, a longing, to be together. Or he wouldn’t be there and that would be another kind of hurt.

“Here.” He pushed something through the chain links.

“What is it?”

“Open it. I had Seth help me get it.”

I opened the bag, tipping it to catch the distant glow from the gate lights. What I saw inside made me smile, and I knew I had my David back.

“I got peanut butter and caramel because you didn’t say which you liked more. I even got regular chocolate. I read your letters, Eva. I love you, too. And I want to be with you. I’ll wait. We’ll find a way to be together.”

That’s all I needed to hear. “It’ll work out, David. I can feel it.” I reached through the fence and pulled him into a kiss.

We fell into our old routine. We met almost every night at the fence in our meadow. We’d talk and kiss and hold hands through the fence while we looked at the stars in the inky, black sky. But an hour was never enough. I pushed it as far as I could, staying an hour and a half most nights.

It was dangerous staying longer than an hour. We couldn’t risk getting caught. So to make up for the twenty-three hours a day we were forced to be apart, I continued writing him letters. Soon, he did the same for me. We’d exchange them each night. I was always excited to read his. It was like Christmas morning every day.

Sometimes we’d make up a theme for the letters we wrote. We’d each write about the same thing—like the most embarrassing day of our lives. My favorite was when we wrote about the best day of our lives. His letter had two sentences. Twelve words total:

The first time I saw you. The first time I kissed you
.

Technically, those were two separate days, but I didn’t care. Reading it gave me butterflies, and my stomach warmed in a way I’d never felt before.

The next morning, Nona and I were walking to work. I was chattering about something—I can’t remember what—when she interrupted me.

“Where do you go every night?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“I see you leave almost every night about the same time. Where do you go?”

“I just like to get out, spend some time outdoors,” I said, wondering what she knew.

“You can do that during the day.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say. I’d been caught. She’d seen me leaving, but did she know what I was doing when I left?

“It’s pretty here,” Nona said.

I let out a breath of relief that she was changing the subject. “Yeah, it is.”

“It’s a lot different from where I grew up.”

“Where was that?” I asked.

“Arizona. I like it here. Do you like it here, Eva?”

“Yes.”

“I’d hate for one of us to have to leave. I hear it’s really hard living in the nomad camps.”

I walked to my classroom, Nona’s words still ringing in my ears.

She’d hate for one of us to have to leave.

We were sitting cross-legged on the ground facing each other. I was sticking things through the holes in the fence. He was complaining that I was bringing him too much. I was shushing him. I liked bringing him things.

In return, he’d started bringing me drawings. I loved his art. It came so naturally to him, like writing my name did to me. I kept each drawing in a scrapbook so I could look at them whenever I wanted.

After I pushed the last of the cans of fruit I had brought him through the fence, he gave me my drawing. It was beautiful. Two people, holding hands, walked along the shore of the ocean, the sun setting over the water. The sand showed bits of seaweed and the footprints of the couple as they walked barefoot through it. Shells were scattered across the shoreline, and gulls flew over the water.

“It’s so beautiful.”

“It’s a picture of us. One day, we’ll be the couple walking along the ocean shore.”

We didn’t hear the others until it was too late.

T
he spotlight shone bright in the dark meadow. I jumped up with a scream. It took me a millisecond to understand what was happening.

“Run!”

He looked at me, a pained expression on his face.

“David, run!”

He grabbed his things and ran into the brush. He made it to the tree line before the soldiers were able to find him again with a spotlight. I sighed, my shoulders slumping in relief. I didn’t know what they would have done to him, but I knew they wouldn’t let him inside the compound. They wouldn’t put him in quarantine.

“Stand up and show us your hands,” the man yelled through a bullhorn. How ridiculous for him to use a bullhorn—the meadow was quiet, except for the sound of the Humvee and the idiot’s voice booming out.

I stood up and raised my hands so the soldier could see. A man dressed in a hazmat suit approached and used a zip tie to bind my hands. He grabbed me under the arm and pulled me roughly to the Humvee, pushing me inside.

They drove me to the clinic. There were two of them in the back with me, and they never put their guns away. My hands were slick with sweat and my heart pounded painfully, each contraction sending more and more adrenaline through my body.

The drive to the clinic seemed to take an hour, but was actually just a few short minutes. We didn’t drive to the front entrance. Instead the vehicle stopped next to a large green dumpster behind the building. The smell of rotting garbage filled the air. I put my hands over my nose and mouth, trying not to gag.

The MP to my right got out first. The other jammed his elbow into the small of my back, pushing me toward the door. I slowly climbed out of the vehicle, the MP close behind me.

A single lightbulb hanging over the clinic’s door provided the only light in the alley. The MPs herded me through the door to the small reception desk that faced it. The men stopped, one man’s fingers biting into my arm harder than necessary.