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After wrestling with stomach-churning dread all weekend, I didn’t want to return to school. Even with only a week left before the end of our final year, and no academic pressure, I was afraid of throwing up when I saw Anna.
Since I hadn’t heard from her on Saturday or Sunday, I had to assume she’d made it home safely. Otherwise, her arrest would have made it into the daily bulletins my father received from the governor’s office. He would have told me if he’d read about her being arrested. I imagined it would have been big news, the daughter of the Head Matchmaker having a criminal record.
That meant she would be in school and, for the first time since kindergarten, I couldn’t count on her to be waiting in the lobby for me. She would probably take one look at me and walk in the opposite direction. The terror that had permeated my early morning trek home—the heart-pounding belief that the guardsmen would come banging on our front door to arrest me—had given way to guilt and then the nauseating uncertainty that had me so afraid to go to school.
Being reported for my abnormality would have been better than this. At least the cops would have been quick about taking me to the reconditioning center.
On Monday morning, my mother kissed me goodbye at the front door, stepped back, and studied me. “You look pale, sweetie.”
“It’s...” I grasped for an answer that would keep her at arm’s length while still sounding like the truth. “What if...”
She nodded, her lips pressing together in sympathy. “Whoever they match you with, trust that it’ll turn out for the best. It did with me and your father. Even if you don’t love your match at first, you might grow to, in time.”
That wasn’t pertinent, but it was somewhat true. I couldn’t correct her without revealing secrets that would hurt her. So, I kissed her on the cheek and accepted her statement without correcting her.
“Thank you, Mom.”
I rode the Commonwealth Prep bus like it was any other day, book in hand to keep from having to look at anyone else. It wasn’t that I generally avoided my classmates or that I didn’t like them. Reading and studying during the half-hour ride to and from school was a hard habit to break, even with the CAIT and MATCH exams behind me.
Besides, if I kept my nose in a book, it would keep everyone else from seeing the guilt I was sure was etched in every pore. My skin felt too tight, like it couldn’t possibly hold me together. When I’d reread the same page four times, the words blurring across the pages, I finally closed the book and dug around in my backpack for something else to read.
There were people at school—possibly even on this bus—who’d seen me going out to the club, kissing Anna, and not just gaping at, but fleeing the raid with a Shamed. I’d done what every kid did... and then some. Crossed more lines than I’d thought possible. How could I get off that bus and face everyone?
But I did, my shaky legs taking me into the building like they had for twelve years. I made it through those doors out of nothing more than habit. My body didn’t know any better.
Anna was holding court as usual just inside the front doors, while the other students milled around in various groups, waiting for the first bell. If I avoided her, it might cause more of a spectacle than our ill-fated outing already had. Rumors would fly if the two of us, inseparable since first grade, didn’t talk. But if I acted like nothing had changed, I wouldn’t get the answers I burned to know.
Our gazes met, hers still the bluest blue I’d ever seen... but no longer the prettiest. She waved her fan club away and approached, arms hugging her textbooks tight to her chest. Something about her angelic beauty didn’t move me as much as it once did. Now all seeing her face did was leave a sour pit in my stomach. I couldn’t go on like this.
“Can you believe it’s our last week of school?” There was an unnatural lilt to her voice when she said it, pitched just loudly enough for anyone around us to hear.
She walked past me and I fell into step beside her. Another habit of more than a decade and a half that I couldn’t break. There was no way, though, that I could fall into normal conversation with her.
“About Friday night,” I started, wishing this didn’t have to be so awkward.
“Don’t sweat it.” Anna tossed her hair and said hello to another student passing us in the hallway. As usual, she radiated confidence and presented herself with composure, but I felt the discomfort seething beneath the surface. She wanted to get away from me.
I gripped the strap of my backpack, determined to plow on with my attempt to right everything between us. Especially with this being the last week of school. We couldn’t move on to the next phase of our lives with this hanging between us.
“But I have to tell you how sorry I am and make sure you made it home okay. With the raid and all—”
“Kira, don’t I look okay?” She turned and glared at me, her eyes harder than her voice. “I’m here, aren’t I? And I’m not mad at you, I promise. You made your feelings clear and now it’s time for me to do the same. We’re friends and that’s all we’ll ever be. I understand that there’s something wrong with you, but I think being matched will change that, if you just let it. Do you understand? Please don’t make this any weirder than it already is.”
Her words stung. I turned away, certain I would burst into tears at any moment. She had to understand that I wasn’t trying to make things weird, but right between us. Somehow, I would make her see that, but Anna seemed determined to deprive me of that chance. She continued on her way, leaving me to stand in the hall. For the past two years of school, we’d always gone to the second floor and parted ways at the top of the stairwell.
Not today. She hurried onward, straight ahead, taking the longer path to her first class. It was a risk she knew I wouldn’t take, possibly missing that first bell or sliding into my seat just as it rang.
My heart twisting with sadness, I turned and climbed the stairs as fast as I could. All I could do was get through this one day, one hour, one minute at a time.
Throughout the rest of the week, Anna floated through the halls like a ghost, never acknowledging me, refusing to give me the chance to explain myself. At home, the phone remained silent. We’d had a set schedule for calling each other since we were pre-teens. The phone used to ring every other night with calls from Anna. I didn’t dare pick it up and dial her number on my nights. I could imagine each and every lie her mother would invent at Anna’s behest.
Wednesday’s first period announcements included the news that our matches would be posted on Friday, the last day of school. A buzz of excited murmur rippled through my class. Another thing I couldn’t huddle with Anna and talk about, her with all the confidence of someone who could expect whatever she wanted, me shaken and uncertain.
It hurt that, at her behest, I’d gone out to do what every rich, upper class kid at our school did. And, as a result of doing exactly what she’d wanted, I’d not only endangered myself, but lost her friendship.
As the posting of matches and final day of school loomed, there didn’t seem to be any changing that. Anna kept her distance. Other peers seemed to close ranks around Anna, effectively cutting me off from her. I could have joined them, sat in on their chatter and acted like nothing was wrong.
But I was still certain the story of everything that’d happened that night was written all over my face, the truth of it sunk deep in my blood. When Carter McCall, one of the boys in my Calculus class leaned over and asked me if I was the one he’d seen sitting at the bar the night of the raid, I swallowed and nodded.
“Really? That must have been crazy for you. I don’t think I ever saw you at the club before.” He sounded impressed. I couldn't imagine why. “How did you get out of there?”
How?
A girl with dark eyes and dark hair and tattoos snaking along her arms. Someone who’d taken all my pain away with the sweetest drug on the market. A rebel with a voice that could stir a crowd and a body she had been willing to press against mine without hesitation. A Shamed who had risked what little she had to save a privileged kid like me.
She’d taken every mistake I’d made that night and fixed it. Appointed herself my protector and made sure I got home safely.
“A... a friend,” I rasped out.
Which was exactly what I needed more than ever right now.