Matched, Page 23

  She lied. The error was much bigger than she said it was.

  Ky keeps talking. “I’m not even a full citizen. They said the whole incident was completely irregular.” He smiles, a bitter twist to his mouth that it hurts me to see. “Then they showed me a picture. The girl who would have been my Match if I weren’t what I am.” Ky swallows.

  “Who was she?” I ask. My voice sounds harsh, grating. Don’t say that it was me. Don’t say that it was me, because then I will know that you saw me because they told you to look.

  “You,” he says.

  And now I see. Ky’s love for me, which I thought was pure and unblemished by any Officials or data or Matching pools, is not. They have touched even this.

  I feel like something is dying, ruined beyond repair. If the Officials orchestrated our whole love affair, the one thing in my life I thought happened in spite of them—I can’t finish the thought.

  The forest around me blurs into green and without the red flags marking the way, I would not know my way down. As it is, I tear at them wildly, pulling them off the branches.

  “Cassia,” he says behind me. “Cassia. Why does it matter?”

  I shake my head.

  “Cassia,” he calls after me. “You’re keeping something from me, too.”

  A whistle sounds sharp and clear below us. We have come so far but never made it to the top.

  “I thought you were eating lunch at the Arboretum,” Xander says. The two of us sit together in the meal hall at Second School.

  “I changed my mind,” I tell him. “I wanted to eat here today.” The nutrition personnel frowned at me when I asked for one of the extra meals they keep on hand, but after checking my data, they handed over the meal without further comment. They must have seen that I hardly ever do this. Or maybe there’s some other flag on my data that I can’t think about right now. Not after the revelation from Ky.

  I realize how much food my container holds this time, now that it’s a general portion and not labeled specifically for me. My portions have been getting smaller. What purpose does that serve? Am I too fat? I look down at my arms and legs, strong from all the hiking. I don’t think so. And I realize again how distracted my parents must be; under normal circumstances, they would have noticed my smaller portions and had plenty to say to the nutrition personnel about them.

  Things are wrong everywhere.

  I push back my chair. “Will you come with me?”

  Xander glances at his watch. “Where? Class starts soon.”

  “I know,” I say. “We’re not going far. Please.”

  “All right,” Xander says, looking at me with a puzzled expression on his face.

  I lead him down the hall to the classroom area and push open the door at the end. There, in a small area like a courtyard, is the Applicable Sciences botany pond. Xander and I are alone.

  I have to tell him. This is Xander. He deserves to know about Ky, and he deserves to hear it from me. Not from an Official in a greenspace, today or some other day.

  Drawing a deep breath, I look down at the pond. It isn’t blue like the pool where we swim. This water is brownish-green under its silvery surface, messy with life.

  “Xander,” I say, my voice as quiet as if we were hidden in trees on the Hill. “I have something to tell you.”

  “I’m listening,” he says, waiting, looking at me. Always steady. Always Xander.

  It’s better to say this quickly, before I find myself unable to say it at all. “I think I’m falling in love with someone else.” I speak so softly, I almost can’t hear my own voice. But Xander understands.

  Almost before I’ve finished, he’s shaking his head and saying, “No,” putting up his hand to stop me before I say more. But it isn’t either of those gestures or that word that makes me fall silent. It’s the hurt in his eyes. And what they are saying isn’t No. It’s: Why?

  “No,” Xander says again, turning away from me.

  I can’t bear that, so I move in front of him, try to see him, too. He won’t look at me for a long moment. I don’t know what to say. I don’t dare to touch him. All I can do is stand there, hoping he will look back.

  When he does, the pain is still there.

  And something else too. Something that doesn’t look like surprise. It looks like recognition. Did some part of him know this was happening? Is that why he challenged Ky to the games?

  “I’m sorry,” I say, rushing. “You’re my friend. I love you too.” It is the first time I’ve said those words to him, and it comes out all wrong. The sound of it, hurried and strained, makes the words seem like less than they are.

  “You love me too?” Xander says, his voice cold. “What game are you playing?”

  “I’m not playing a game,” I whisper. “I do love you. But it’s different.”

  Xander says nothing. An hysterical giggle rises up in me; it’s exactly like the last time we had an argument and he refused to speak to me. Years ago, when I decided that I didn’t like playing the games as much as I once had. Xander was mad. “But no one else plays like you,” he said. And then, when I wouldn’t give in, he wouldn’t talk to me. I still wouldn’t play.

  It took two weeks before our peace was brokered, that day he saw me jump into the pool from the diving board after Grandfather jumped first. I surfaced, frightened and exhilarated, and Xander swam over to congratulate me. In the rush of the moment all was forgotten.

  What would Grandfather think of this jump I’m taking? Would this be one time he would tell me to hang on to the edge with all my might? Would he say to cling to the side of the board until my fingers became bloody and scraped? Or would he say that it was all right to let go?

  “Xander. The Officials played a game with me. The morning after the Match Banquet, I put the microcard in the port. Your face came up on the screen and it disappeared.” I swallow. “And then someone else’s face appeared instead. It was Ky’s.”

  “Ky Markham?” Xander asks, disbelieving.

  “Yes.”

  “But Ky’s not your Match,” Xander says. “He can’t be, because—”

  “Because why?” I ask. Does Xander know about Ky’s status after all? How?

  “Because I am,” Xander says.

  For a long moment, neither of us speak. Xander doesn’t look away and I don’t think that I can stand this. If I had a green tablet in my mouth now, I’d bite, taste the bitterness before the calm. I think back to that day in the meal hall when he told me Ky could be trusted. Xander believed that. And he believed he could trust me.

  What does he think of us both now?

  Xander leans closer. Blue eyes holding mine, hand hovering next to mine. I close my eyes, both to shut out the pain in his gaze and to stop myself from turning my hand up, weaving my fingers through his, leaning forward, meeting his lips. I open my eyes and look at Xander again.

  “I came up on the screen, too, Cassia,” he says quietly. “But he was the one you chose to see.” And then, quick as a player making his last move, he turns away and pushes through the doors. He leaves me behind.

  Not at first! I want to tell him. And I still see you!

  One by one, the people I can talk to have gone. Grandfather. My mother. And now, Xander.

  You are strong enough to go without it, Grandfather told me about the green tablet.

  But, Grandfather. Am I strong enough to go without you? Without Xander?

  The sun shines down on me where I have chosen to stand. No trees, no shade, no height from which I can look down on what I’ve done. And even if there were, I cannot see for the tears.

  CHAPTER 28

  At home that night, I take out the green tablet again. I know what it can do for me; I saw what it did for Em. It will make me calm. That word, calm, sounds impossibly beautiful, gloriously uncomplicated. A water-smooth word, a word that can take the edge away from fear, gloss it over, make it shiny. Calm. Gentle.

  I put the tablet back in the container and snap it shut, turning to another kind of g
reen next to me. My framed piece of dress in its bit of glass. I wrap my hand in one of my socks and then press down, hard. A faint snap. I lift my hand.

  It’s harder to break something than you would think. I wonder if the Society is finding this to be true of me as well. I put my hand down again, push harder.

  It would be easy if no one watched, if no one could hear me. If these walls weren’t so thin and my life weren’t so transparent, I could throw the glass against the wall, smash it with a rock, destroy with abandon and noise. I think the glass would make a glittery sound when it broke; I would like to see it burst into a million pieces and shine all the way down. But instead, I have to be careful.

  Another long silvery crack runs across the surface of the glass. Underneath, the smooth ice-green cloth is undisturbed. Carefully I pull the pieces of glass apart, lift the largest one up, and pull out the fabric.

  I take off the sock and hold up my hand. I’m not even cut, not even bleeding.

  After the scratchy wool of my sock, the silk feels cool in my hand, luxurious, like water. My birthday began with the water, I think as I fold the material, and I smile.

  After I’ve tucked both the fabric and the tablet container into the pocket of tomorrow’s plainclothes, I climb into bed with that image in my mind. Water. I will drift away tonight on my dreams. That way the datatags won’t pick up a thing in my mind except me, Cassia, floating on the waves, letting them carry my weight for a little while.

  The Officer is not at hiking today.

  Instead, we have a junior Official who bites his words out quick and fast, as though he thinks this is how the Officers speak. His eyes sweep over us, happy with the power to oversee, to direct. “The decision has been made to shorten leisure activities this summer. Today’s your last day of hiking. Take down as many of the red flags as you can and knock over the cairns.”

  I glance over at Ky, who does not seem surprised. I try not to let my gaze linger on his face, try not to look for answers in his eyes. We were both polite and normal on the air-train ride to the Arboretum this morning; we both know how to perform when we’re being watched. All the time I wondered what he thought of me running away from him on the Hill yesterday. What he will think of me once he finds out about the sort, and if he will accept the gift I want to give him today.

  Or if he will do to me what I did to Xander and turn me away.

  “Why?” Lon asks in a whine. “We spent half the summer marking these paths!”

  I think I see a faint smile on Ky’s face and I realize that he likes Lon. Who asks the questions no one else will ask even though he never gets an answer. It strikes me that this is a kind of bravery. A wearing-down kind of bravery, but bravery nonetheless.

  “Don’t ask questions,” the Official snaps at Lon. “Get started.”

  And so, for the last time, Ky and I begin to climb the Hill.

  When we are far enough onto our own path that no one else can see us, Ky grabs my hand as I reach to untie a red cloth from one of the shrubs. “Forget it all,” he says. “We’re going to the top.”

  Our eyes meet. I’ve never seen him look so reckless. I open my mouth to say something but he interrupts me. “Unless you don’t want to try?”

  There’s a challenge in his voice I haven’t heard before. His voice isn’t cruel, but he’s not just curious. He needs to know the answer; what I do now tells him something about me. He doesn’t say anything about yesterday. His face is open, his eyes alight, his body tense, every muscle saying It’s time. Now.

  “I want to try,” I tell him. To prove it, I lead the way along the path we’ve marked together. It isn’t long before I feel his hand brush mine and when our fingers intertwine I feel the same urgency he does. We have to make it to the top.

  I don’t turn around but I hold on tight.

  As we break into the last part of the forest, the part we haven’t charted, I stop. “Wait,” I say. If we’re really going to clear this Hill, I want to pull out the last tangles and twists so we can stand on the top free and open.

  Behind the patience on Ky’s face I see worry, worry that we aren’t going to make it in time. Even now, the whistle could be shrilling below us and I wouldn’t hear it over the beating of our hearts and the sound of our breathing in and out, in and out, the same air. “I was scared yesterday.”

  “Of what?”

  “That we fell in love because of the Officials,” I say. “They told you about me. They told me about you, the morning after my Match, when your face came up on my microcard by mistake. You and I knew each other all along, but we never did anything about it until ...” I can’t finish my sentence, but Ky knows what I mean.

  “You don’t throw something away just because they predicted it,” he protests.

  “But I don’t want to be defined by their choices,” I say.

  “You’re not,” he says. “You never have to be.”

  “Sisyphus and the rock,” I say, remembering. Grandfather would have understood that story. He rolled the rock, he lived the life the Society planned for him, but his thoughts were always his own.

  Ky smiles. “Exactly. But we,” he tugs at my hand, gently, “are going to make it to the top. And maybe even stand there for a minute. Come on.”

  “I have to tell you something else,” I say.

  “Is it about the sort?” he asks.

  “Yes—”

  Ky interrupts me. “They told us. I’m part of the group that’s going to get a new work position. I already know.”

  Does he know? Does he know his life will be shorter if he keeps working at the disposal center? Does he know he was right on the line between those who stayed and those who moved on? Does he know what I did?

  He sees the questions in my eyes. “I know you had to sort us into two groups. I know I was probably right in the middle.”

  “Do you want to know what I did?”

  “I can guess,” he says. “They told you about the life expectancy and the poisons, didn’t they? That’s why you put me where you did.”

  “Yes,” I say. “You know about the poisons, too?”

  “Of course. Most of us figure it out. But none of us are in a position to complain. Our lives are still much longer here than they’d be in the Outer Provinces.”

  “Ky.” It’s hard to ask, but I have to know. “Are you leaving?”

  He looks up. Above us, fierce and golden, the sun climbs the sky. “I’m not sure. They haven’t told us yet. But I know we don’t have much time.”

  When we reach the top of the Hill it feels completely different in some ways and not in others. He is still Ky. I am still Cassia. But we stand together in a place where neither of us has been before.

  It’s the same world, gray and blue and green and gold, that I’ve seen all my life. The same world I saw from Grandfather’s window and from the top of the little hill. But I am higher now. If I had wings, I could spread them. I could soar.

  “I want you to have this,” Ky says, handing me the artifact.

  “I don’t know how to use it,” I say, not wanting to reveal how much I want to accept his gift. How deeply I ache to hold and have something that is part of his story and part of him.

  “I think Xander can teach you,” he says gently, and I draw in my breath. Is he telling me good-bye? Is he telling me to trust in Xander? To be with Xander?

  Before I can ask, Ky pulls me close and his words are in my ear, warm and whispered. “It will help you find me,” he says. “If I ever do go anywhere.”

  My face fits perfectly into the spot against his shoulder, near his neck, where I can both hear his heart and smell his skin. I’m safe here, too. Some essential part of me is safer with Ky than anywhere else.

  Ky presses another piece of paper into my hand. “The last part of my story,” he says. “Will you save it? Don’t look at it yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Just wait,” he says, voice quiet, strong. “Wait a little while.”

  “I have something
for you, too,” I say, pulling away just a little, reaching into my pocket. I give him the scrap of fabric, the green silk from my dress.

  He holds it up to my face to see how I looked that night at the Match Banquet. “Beautiful,” he says, gently.

  He puts his arms around me on the top of the Hill. From where we stand I see clouds and trees and the dome of City Hall and the tiny houses of the Boroughs in the distance. For one brief moment, I see it all, this world of mine, and then I look back at Ky.

  Ky says, “Cassia,” and closes his eyes, and I close mine too so that I can meet him in the dark. I feel his arms around me and the smoothness of the green silk as he presses his hand against the small of my back and pulls me closer, closer. “Cassia,” he says once more, softly, so close his lips meet mine, at last. At last.

  I think he might have meant to say something more, but when our lips touch, there is no need, for once, for any words at all.

  CHAPTER 29

  There is screaming in the Borough again and this time it is human.

  I open my eyes. It is so early in the morning that the sky is more black than blue, the slice of dawn at the edge of the horizon more promise than reality.

  My door slams open and in the rectangle of light I see my mother. “Cassia,” she says in relief, and she turns back to call to my father, “She’s fine!”

  “Bram, too,” he calls back, and then we are all in the hall, going toward the front door, because someone on our street is screaming and the sound of it is so uncommon it cuts deep. We may not hear the sound of pain often in Mapletree Borough, but the instinct to try to help has not yet been Matched out of us.

  My father throws open the door and we all look out.

  The streetlights seem dimmer; the Officials’ coats dull and gray. They walk fast, a figure between them. Behind them, a few more people. Officers.

  And someone else, screaming. Even in the muted glow of the streetlights, I recognize her. Aida Markham. Someone who has borne pain before and who bears it again now as she chases the figure surrounded by Officials and Officers.