Once he was dressed, Reed wandered back outside. He passed through the Dorms listlessly and ended up on the sidewalk that ran down toward the city. He didn’t care where he went; there was a more important issue. For months, the Dorms and their culture had been what he lived and breathed. He had let it dictate what he did and define who he was. Then, in one day, one moment, it had evaporated under his feet. He felt lost. And he didn’t even know why it had happened.
What’s going on? Where did this come from?
He couldn’t answer his own questions.
He walked with his hands in his pockets, eyes on the ground, paying no attention to where he went. Caught up in his inner mayhem, he wound his way through the maze of Hill apartments without caring that he didn’t know his way. He ignored his surroundings until he almost ran into a bench. With nothing else to do, he sat down on it and put his elbows on his knees, weary, though not from his walk. He could go no farther. He didn’t care that someone else was already on the bench. Really, he didn’t even notice.
“Are you okay?”
Reed jerked his head up in surprise; the voice was familiar. Snapping out of his mental haze, he found a pair of very concerned, very blue eyes on him. “Oh, Elijah.” He looked down again. “Where’d you come from?”
“I was just sitting here when you wandered up; I’m out here a lot in the evenings. But you don’t look yourself. Are you all right?”
The memory of the night in the woods and his unwarranted disgrace swept through Reed’s mind. He had been avoiding these people; perhaps he should leave. But suddenly, he didn’t care. All his stubbornness and emotions gave way, and he buried his face in his hands. “No,” he answered, “I’m not.”
Elijah was quiet. After a few deep breaths, Reed looked up again. “I don’t even know where to start. There’s today and Reagan and me and you and Allie and everything else. I don’t know about any of it!”
Elijah looked at him thoughtfully. “So Reagan told you to date her because she makes you happy?”
Reed blinked. “How did you know?”
“I lived with him for months. Trust me, we had a lot of… chats.”
That sounded familiar. Reed nodded and dropped his head again. “Yeah, he told me what he thinks, but that didn’t really help. Now I don’t know who to believe, especially after what he said about you.”
“I see.”
That was all. Reed waited for Elijah to ask what he meant and, when he didn’t, Reed volunteered it. “He told me you were really judgmental to him and Riley, and you preached at them all the time because everything had to be your way. Why did you do that?” This was a question that irked him. Something didn’t add up.
Elijah was silent for a moment, staring out at the view. Their bench commanded the view of an entire park, laid out on gentle slopes before them. Except for a jogger or two on the trails and a pair of tennis players on the far-away courts, it was deserted. The lonely trees soaked up golden rays as the sun set above the city below, and a few cicadas sang lazily, echoing each other in the warm evening stillness.
Elijah finally spoke. “I’m not surprised he would say that.” He sighed. “So you want to know why I did all that? Well, I actually didn’t. He says I preached at him, but I never did. I only answered the questions he asked, even when they were rude and meant to mock me. He couldn’t get over the fact that I disagreed with him. He accused me of being a hater and a legalist, trying to stop everybody else from enjoying life. He took all my answers as personal criticisms that targeted his character, which wasn’t it at all.”
Elijah took his hand off the back of the bench and slowly rubbed it back and forth on his knee. “See, Reagan’s the type that loves doing his own thing in life and, if you don’t agree with it, he takes that as something against him. People are like that, especially when they’re doing things they shouldn’t be. They don’t want tolerance; they want unconditional agreement and acceptance. Did I hate him? Never. I loved Reagan, and I still do. I just didn’t like the things he was doing.”
Reed kept his eyes fixed in the distance, listening as Elijah continued. “You know what I’m talking about: the girls. It was mild at first, but it got worse as he got more popular. I knew what was going on, and I tried to stay out of it. I finally had to put my foot down when he started trying to sneak them into our room, sometimes several in one night. That didn’t stop him, though.” He hesitated. “He just sneaked into their rooms instead.”
Reed said nothing. Elijah went on. “Riley—he’s a different story. You live with him; I’m sure you know what I mean. He was very private about it when he first moved to the Hill, but he got comfortable quickly when he saw how tolerant the culture was. After he officially came out, he got bolder and even a little hostile. I just wish he’d given me a chance. Instead, he assumed I would be cruel to him because of my faith, so he refused to even talk to me about it. He had a lot of anger built up from his past, and I got the brunt of it. I could handle it, though, all of it—the way both of them treated me, acted around me, talked about me. I could put up with a lot of the other stuff they did, too, but I couldn’t live in the same room with them if it was going to ruin our relationship. If we couldn’t talk about our differences like adults and establish mutual respect, we would all end up angry, frustrated, and bitter.”
“That’s why you left,” said Reed softly.
Elijah nodded. “It is. I don’t know if it’s still like that, but you can imagine.”
Reed looked down. “Yeah, I can. I’ve seen it all, and… I liked it, too.” He kept his eyes fixed on the ground. “But it’s different now. I always agreed with Reagan ’cause I liked the way he did life, but then I saw something today and, I don’t know why, but…”
He poured out the story of the scene at the pool and his inexplicable reaction. “And I don’t know what’s come over me!” he finished. “That was nothing compared to other things that go on all the time. They’ve never bothered me before. Why are they so strange to me now?”
Elijah was leaning forward, elbows on his knees and hands together, listening and staring into the west. He didn’t answer right away. He seemed to collect his thoughts and choose his words carefully. “Reed, I think there’s more going on here than you’d believe.” He tapped his thumbs together. “You said you’d felt listless and confused all day, right? There’s something to that. Do you think it could all be traced back to the shooting?”
Reed thought. True, that had shaken him badly at first, but he had gotten over it… or had he? He shrugged. “I don’t know. Why?”
“Because big things like that usually have a deeper effect on us than we realize. What if that shock and trauma set you up for this? Perhaps it was meant to bring you to this point.”
Reed realized, the shooting marked the day when something had changed. He had never been able to truly go back to his carefree mindset afterwards. There was doubt now. He had seen that, despite everything, the system was frail like Elijah said. Perhaps it had been… wait.
“Bring me to this point? What do you mean?”
Elijah turned and looked at him steadily. “Reed, the Hill is a materialized delusion and nothing more. Like I tried to tell you before, it’s fake. The whole thing is a fantasy world built on being young and all the things that go with that. Being our age is wonderful, but it’s temporary. The Hill is an attempt to make it last longer than it’s supposed to, and it’s doomed to failure. It’s so unrealistic that, when real life hits, it’ll all come crashing down.”
Reed wasn’t sure what to think about that. “So what’s that got to do with what we were talking about?”
“The shooting showed you that. It was like you and everybody else got a horrible slap in the face from reality. You have to see now that the system’s not strong enough. You can’t wrap your life around it like they tell you to. A crisis could turn it all to dust in a second. You’ve been called out, Reed—warned, before it’s too late.”
“Too late? What do you mean? Nothing’s happened.”
“No, not yet. But anybody can see it’s getting close. The government has built itself into a huge complex set up on empty credit and promises. It can’t last forever, and when it gives out, the Organization will vaporize. Then what’ll happen to the Hill? The shooting had a purpose: it was the last warning to get off the sinking ship and onto something better before it’s too late.”
“Whoa.” Reed held up his hands. “The shooting was on purpose to get me into ‘something better?’ On purpose? Something better? You mean your God.” His voice rose in anger. “So your God allowed sixty-seven kids to get mown down by a maniac on purpose? Some God! Did it ever occur to Him that those were my friends? Did He ever think it would hurt people?”
Elijah’s voice never changed from its kind, soft tone. “Reed, God was just as heartbroken about what happened as anyone. He didn’t want it to be that way. Why didn’t He stop it? Nobody knows the mind of God, but I do know one thing. God can take the horrible and heartbreaking and draw something good—even beautiful—out of it. Pain can be His best tool.”
“Pain!” Reed shot out bitterly. “What would you know about that? Do you know what I grew up with? My parents divorced when I was eight. They didn’t care how me or my sister felt; they just did it. My dad got custody of me, but my mom tried to take my sister so Dad couldn’t have both of us. They dragged us through court for months before Mom finally got her way, and they split us up. I lived with Dad in L.A., but he didn’t care about me. I was just a pawn for him to use against Mom. He was too busy with the girlfriends he brought to live with us. I hated every one of them. He hardly paid me any attention, ever. I grew up on my own. My soccer coach taught me how to shave.”
Reed clenched his teeth for a second, staring at the ground before he went on. “Mom wasn’t any better. I had to visit her because the court said I did, but I didn’t want to. The divorce was all her fault; she walked out and left us for a CPA. She married him, too. He already had a son who was an absolute jerk. Of course, they tried to make us get along because we were ‘step-brothers,’ but I’m no more related to him than to… to Darth Vader. My sister had to live with him, and she said he was awful. She’s the only one in my family I even remotely cared for, but I haven’t heard from her since we got shipped off. I have no idea where she is now.
“That’s pain, and you have no idea what it’s like! You grew up in a perfect family and lived a dream all your life. You can’t understand.” Reed turned away abruptly, his emotions getting the best of him, and worked to bring himself under control.
Silence hung in the air for a moment, interrupted only by a cicada singing in the distance. Elijah sighed. “That is pain, Reed. Terrible pain. But…” he paused. His voice sounded strangely tired and sad. “But I’m not like you think. I don’t like to tell people this, but there’s something you need to know. It’s a long story; maybe it will help you understand.”