SAGE
I freed myself from Beckett’s hold and marched back to my chair immediately after the song ended.
I was mad at myself. I was failing miserably at one of the most important promises I’d made with myself: to trust the people closest to me.
Why couldn’t I take Beckett for his word? What was so hard about it? I wanted to believe him. A part of me wanted us to be those two people again. Why couldn’t I at least try harder?
It didn’t help that with every layer of anger that built inside of me, some of it got shoveled on Beckett. He was the one who lied to me in the first place. We could have avoided this whole divide between us if he’d just told me who he was, right when he came to Canta three years ago.
Beckett followed me to the table and sat in the chair next to mine, reluctant to engage with me again.
Dr. Mitchell stepped up on stage, announcing that bidding would begin after the last musical piece. Several people took their seats after his announcement.
Beckett lowered his elbows to his knees and angled his body toward me.
“Jack will be coming soon,” he whispered. “We’ll exit out the back while he’s distracting the masses. All you need to do is just follow me.”
“Great,” I said, with as little emotion as possible. Inside, my brain began to gear my body up for what would come next: running.
I’d sort out all the rest of my thoughts later.
A thin man with wrinkled, sagging skin approached our table to ask if he could have the last dance.
“She’s not interested right now.” Beckett waved him away.
“Maybe I was interested,” I said tightly as the man shuffled back to his table.
I felt Beckett staring at me. A long pause filled the air between us.
When I didn’t acknowledge his gaze, he sighed. He dropped his head into his hand and rubbed his face, stopping with his fingertips and thumb pressed to his cheeks. This was his token move when he was frustrated about something.
Finally, his hand lowered, and he spoke. “Sage, when I got to the island, I knew my lie might have cost me the one thing I wanted most. You. I knew that. But still, I hoped that you might somehow see that the guy you knew, the person I was when we were together on the farm was me. I felt more alive, more real, more myself in those three years with you than I ever had before in my life.”
I shook my head. “It’s not so easy as just saying it out loud, Beck. It’s more complicated than that.”
“Don’t take my honesty for a lie. Please believe me.” He begged, but instead of breaking down my walls, it angered me.
I struggled to keep my voice low. “I don’t know what to believe anymore!”
“How about believing your heart?”
“My heart can’t be trusted.”
Beckett laid his hand on top of mine in my lap. “I told you as much truth as I possibly could. Please, please remember that.”
He didn’t say anything else to make it right, or better, or to prove his point.
I decided to allow his hand to sit there, mainly not to cause a scene. And despite everything, the warmth of it still somehow comforted me.
Beckett’s familiar scent—hints of earthy soil and clean-smelling soap—permeated my space, even with all the other people in their designer clothes and fancy perfumes. For a moment, it was easy to picture us in this place alone. Just me and Beckett. Without the junk we had to work through. Just the Beckett I knew before. And me, the farm girl I knew before.
I surveyed the room, attempting to distract myself. Almost everyone had their gazes fixed on the eggs at the front of the stage where the bidding was about to begin. Many of them eyed the glass dome like the eggs on display represented their prize kill for the year.
These people were such a contrast to the familiar person next to me, the boy holding my hand, this person who I knew cared about me, who didn’t see me as dollar signs or a revolutionary scientific advancement.
I knew that about him, didn’t I? I wanted to believe that with all my heart. I only wished there wasn’t a seed of doubt buried within all my longing.
Anger—at everything—threatened to rise up again, but then I looked at Beckett’s tormented face: pain at our disconnected reuniting.
Something cracked inside my chest. I wanted to open up a least some piece of myself, offer out some sort of honest comment, especially after all Beckett had said tonight. I needed to do it, just in case everything Beckett said was completely true, and it was me who was being the total jerk. Just in case this escape didn’t go as planned.
I didn’t know what to say because I couldn’t say what Beckett wanted to hear.
I’d be lying if I said: “I trust you,” or “I love you,” or “Everything is going to be fine.”
So instead, I took another look around the ballroom, at all the eyes staring at my fake eggs up on stage, and I told him something I really felt.
“I’m scared, Beckett.”
At least this was true.
I didn’t know how we’d make it out of here.
I didn’t know how this would all end.
What if Vasterias stopped us and I was trapped here? What would follow in the months ahead? The testing? The extractions? What if these people got what they wanted?
Beckett’s shoulders dropped at this, perhaps relieved at my vulnerability, perhaps disappointed that my sentiments didn’t match his own.
“So am I,” he whispered, “but it’s okay.” He squeezed my hand. “We’re leaving soon.”
He smiled his charming smile for the lady watching us from across the table, and he didn’t release my hand until the song ended and Dr. Mitchell took the stage.