Champion, Page 29

Page 29

 

  His eyes open; they blink at me sleepily. He stares at me for a long moment. I wonder what he sees, and whether all of the pain and joy and fear he had confessed earlier is still there, forever haunting him. He leans over to give me the gentlest, most delicate kiss. His lips linger, afraid to leave. I don’t want to leave either. I don’t want to think about waking up. When I pull him close to me again, he obliges, aching for more. And all I can think about is that I’m grateful for his silence, for not telling me that I am joining us together when I should be letting him go.

  IT’S NOT LIKE I HAVEN’T HAD MY SHARE OF MOMENTS WITH girls. I had my first kiss when I was twelve, when I locked lips with a sixteen-year-old girl in exchange for her not ratting me out to the street police. I’ve fooled around with a handful of girls in the slum sectors and a few from wealthy sectors—there was even one gem sector, high school freshman who I’d had a couple days’ romance with back when I was fourteen. She was cute, with pixie-short, light brown hair and flawless olive skin, and we’d sneak off every afternoon to the basement of her school and, well, have a little fun. Long story.

  But . . . June.

  My heart’s been torn wide open, just like I feared it would be, and I have no willpower to close it back up. Any barrier I might’ve succeeded in putting up around myself, any resistance I might’ve built up against my feelings for her, is now completely gone. Shattered. In the dim blue light of night, I reach out and run one hand along the curve of June’s body. My breathing is still shallow. I don’t want to be the first to say something. My chest is pressed gently against her back and my arm’s resting comfortably around her waist; her hair drapes over her neck in a dark, glossy rope. I bury my face against her smooth skin. A million thoughts pour through my head, but like her, I stay silent.

  There’s simply nothing to say.

  * * *

  I jolt awake in bed, gasping. I can barely breathe—my lungs heave in an attempt to suck in air. I look around frantically. Where am I?

  I’m in June’s bed.

  It was a nightmare, just a nightmare, and the Lake sector alley and street and blood are gone. I lie there a moment, trying quietly to catch my breath and slow the pounding of my heart. I’m completely drenched in sweat. I glance over at June. She’s lying on her side and facing me, her body still rising and falling in a gentle, steady rhythm. Good. I didn’t wake her. I hurriedly wipe tears from my face with the palm of my uninjured hand. Then I lie there for a few minutes, still trembling. When it’s obvious that I’m not going to be able to fall back asleep, I slowly sit up in bed and crouch with my arms against my knees. I bow my head. My lashes brush against the skin of my arm. I feel so weak, like I just finished climbing up a thirty-story building.

  This was easily the worst nightmare I’ve had yet. I’m even terrified to blink for too long, in case I have to revisit the images that danced under my eyelids. I look around the room. My vision blurs again; I angrily wipe the fresh tears away. What time is it? It’s still pitch-black outside, with only the faint glow from distant JumboTrons and streetlights filtering into the room. I glance toward June, watching how the dim lights from outside splash color across her silhouette. This time, I don’t reach out and touch her.

  I don’t know how long I sit there crouched like that, taking in one deep lungful of air after another until my breathing finally steadies. It’s long enough for the sweat beading my entire body to dry. My eyes wander to the room’s balcony. I stare at it for a while, unable to look away, and then I gingerly slide out of bed without a sound and slip into my shirt, trousers, and boots. I twist my hair up into a tight knot, then fit a cap snugly over it. June stirs a little. I stop moving. When she settles back down, I finish buttoning my shirt and walk over to the glass balcony doors. In the corner of the bedroom, June’s dog gives me a curious tilt of his head. But he doesn’t make a sound. I say a silent thanks in my head, then open the balcony doors. They swing open, then close behind me without a click.

  I pull myself laboriously onto the balcony railings, perch there like a cat, and survey my surroundings. Ruby sector, a gem sector that’s so completely different from where I came from. I’m back in LA, but I don’t recognize it. Clean, manicured streets, new and shiny JumboTrons, wide sidewalks without cracks and potholes, without street police dragging crying orphans away from market stands. Instinctively, my attention turns in the direction of the city that Lake sector would be. From this side of the building, I can’t see downtown LA, but I can feel it there, the memories that woke me up and whispered for me to come back. The paper clip ring sits heavily on my finger. A dark, terrible mood lingers at the back of my mind after that nightmare, something I can’t seem to shake. I hop over the side of the balcony and work my way down to a lower ledge. I make my way silently, floor by floor, until my boots hit the pavement and I blend into the shadows of the night. My breaths come raggedly.

  Even here in a gem sector, there are now city patrols guarding the streets, their guns drawn as if ready for a surprise Colonies’ attack at any moment. I steer clear of them to avoid any questions, and go back to my old street habits, making my way through back alley mazes and shaded sides of buildings until I reach a train station where jeeps are lined up, waiting to give rides. I ignore the jeeps—I’m not in the mood to get chatty with one of the drivers and then have them recognize me as Day, and then hear rumors spreading around town the next morning about whatever the hell they think I was up to. Instead, I head into the train station and wait for the next automated ride to come and take me to Union Station in downtown.

  Half an hour later, I step out of the downtown station and make my way silently through the streets until I’m close to my mother’s old home. The cracks in all the slum sector roads are good for one thing—here and there I see patches of sea daisies growing haphazardly, little spots of turquoise and green on an otherwise gray street. On instinct, I bend down and pick a handful of them. Mom’s favorite.

  “You there. Hey, boy. ”

  I turn to see who’s calling. It actually takes me a few seconds to find her, because she’s so small. An old woman’s hunched against the side of a boarded-up building, shivering in the night air. She’s bent almost double, with a face completely covered in deep wrinkles, and her clothes are so tattered that I can’t tell where any of it ends or begins—it’s just one big mop of rags. She has a cracked mug sitting at her dirty bare feet, but what really makes me stop is that her hands are wrapped in thick bandages. Just like Mom’s. When she sees that my attention is on her, her eyes light up with a faint glint of hope. I’m not sure if she recognizes me, but I’m also not sure how well she can see. “Any spare change, little boy?” she croaks.

  I dig around numbly in my pockets, then pull out a small wad of cash. Eight hundred Republic Notes. Not too long ago, I would’ve put my life in danger to get my hands on this much money. I bend down next to the old woman, then press the bills into her shaking palm and squeeze her bandaged hands with my own.

  “Keep it hidden. Don’t tell anyone. ” When she just continues to stare at me with shocked eyes and an agape mouth, I stand up and start walking back down the street. I think she calls out, but I don’t bother turning around. Don’t want to see those bandaged hands again.

  Minutes later, I reach the intersection of Watson and Figueroa. My old home.

  The street hasn’t changed much from how I remember it, but this time my mother’s home is boarded up and abandoned, like many of the other buildings in the slum sectors. I wonder if there are squatters in there, all holed up in our old bedroom or sleeping on the kitchen floor. No light shines from the house. I walk slowly toward it, wondering if I’m still lost in my nightmare. Maybe I haven’t woken up at all. No more quarantine tape blocks the street off, no more plague patrols hang around outside the house. As I walk toward it, I notice an old bloodstain still visible, if only barely, on the broken concrete leading toward the house. It looks brown and faded now, so different
from how I remember it. I stare at the bloodstain, numb and unfeeling, then step around it and continue on. My hand clings tightly to the thick bundle of sea daisies I brought.

  When I approach the front door, I see the familiar red X is still there, although now it’s faded and chipped, and several planks of rotting wood are nailed across the door frame. I stand there for a while, running a finger along the dying paint streaks. A few minutes later, I snap out of my daze and wander around to the back of the house. Half of our fence has now collapsed, leaving the tiny yard exposed and visible to our neighbors. The back door also has planks of wood nailed across it, but they’re so rotten and crumbling that all I have to do is put a little weight on them and they come apart in a dull crackle of splinters.

  I force the door open and step inside. I remove my cap as I go, letting my hair tumble down my back. Mom had always told us to take our hats off while in the house.

  My eyes adjust to the darkness. I step quietly up a few steps and enter the back of our tiny living room. They may have boarded up the house as part of some standard protocol, but the furniture inside the house is untouched, different only in that it’s all covered in a layer of dust. My family’s few belongings are still here, in exactly the same condition as I’d last seen them. The old Elector’s portrait hangs on the room’s far wall, prominent and centered, and our little wooden dining table still has thick layers of cardboard tacked to one of its legs, still doing their job of holding the table up. One of the chairs is lying on the ground, as if someone had to get up in a hurry. That had been John, I now remember. I recall how we’d all headed into the bedroom to grab Eden, trying to get our little brother out before the plague patrols came for him.

  The bedroom. I turn my boots in the direction of our narrow bedroom door. It only takes a few steps to reach it. Yeah, everything in here is exactly the same too, maybe with a few extra cobwebs. The plant that Eden had once brought home is still sitting in the corner, although now it’s dead, its leaves and vines black and shriveled. I stand there for a moment, staring at it, and then head back into the living room. I walk once around the dining table. Finally, I sit in my old chair. It creaks like it always did.

  I lay the bundle of sea daisies carefully on the tabletop. Our lantern sits in the middle of the table, unlit and unused. Usually, the routine went like this: Mom would come home around six o’clock every day, a few hours after I’d gotten back from grade school, and John would get home around nine or ten. Mom would try to hold off on lighting the table lantern each night until John returned, and after a while Eden and I got used to looking forward to “the lantern lighting,” which always meant John had just walked through the door. And that meant we’d get to sit down to dinner.

  I don’t know why I sit here and feel the familiar old expectation that Mom is going to come out from the kitchen and light the lantern. I don’t know how I can feel a jolt of joy in my chest, thinking John is home, that dinner’s served. Stupid old habits. Still, my eyes go expectantly to the front door. My hopes rise.