“Juliette?”
My head snaps up.
His eyes are wary, worried, analyzing me.
I look away.
He clears his throat. “So, uh, they only feed us once a day?”
His question sends both our eyes toward the small slot in the door.
I curl my knees to my chest and balance my bones on the mattress. If I hold myself very, very still, I can almost ignore the metal digging into my skin. “There’s no system to the food,” I tell him. My finger traces a new pattern down the rough material of the blanket. “There’s usually something in the morning, but there are no guarantees for anything else. Sometimes . . . we get lucky.” My eyes flick up to the pane of glass punched into the wall. Pinks and reds filter into the room and I know it’s the start of a new beginning. The start of the same end. Another day.
Maybe I will die today.
Maybe a bird will fly today.
“So that’s it? They open the door once a day for people to do their business and maybe if we’re lucky they feed us? That’s it?”
The bird will be white with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head. It will fly. “That’s it.”
“There’s no . . . group therapy?” He almost laughs.
“Until you arrived, I hadn’t spoken a single word in two hundred sixty-four days.”
His silence says so much. I can almost reach out and touch the guilt growing on his shoulders. “How long are you in for?” he finally asks.
Forever. “I don’t know.” A mechanical sound creaks/groans/cranks in the distance. My life is 4 walls of missed opportunities poured into concrete molds.
“What about your family?” There’s a serious sorrow in his voice, almost like he already knows the answer to that question.
Here is what I know about my parents: I have no idea where they are. “Why are you here?” I talk to my fingers to avoid his gaze. I’ve studied my hands so thoroughly I know exactly where each bump cut and bruise has ravaged my skin. Small hands. Slim fingers. I curl them into a fist and release them to lose the tension. He still hasn’t responded.
I look up.
“I’m not insane,” is all he says.
“That’s what we all say.” I cock my head only to shake it a fraction of an inch. I bite my lip. My eyes can’t help but steal glances out the window.
“Why do you keep looking outside?”
I don’t mind his questions, I really don’t. It’s just strange to have someone to talk to. It’s strange to have to exert energy to move my lips to form words necessary to explain my actions. No one has cared for so long. No one’s watched me closely enough to wonder why I stare out a window. No one has ever treated me like an equal. Then again, he doesn’t know I’m a monster my secret. I wonder how long this will last before he’s running for his life.
I’ve forgotten to answer and he’s still studying me.
I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear only to change my mind. “Why do you stare so much?”
His eyes are careful, curious. “I figured the only reason they would lock me up with a girl was because you were crazy. I thought they were trying to torture me by putting me in the same space as a psychopath. I thought you were my punishment.”
“That’s why you stole my bed.” To exert power. To stake a claim. To fight first.
He drops his eyes. Clasps and unclasps his hands before rubbing the back of his neck. “Why’d you help me? How’d you know I wouldn’t hurt you?”
I count my fingers to make sure they’re still there. “I didn’t.”
“You didn’t help me or you didn’t know if I’d hurt you?”
“Adam.” My lips curve around the shape of his name. I’m surprised to discover how much I love the easy, familiar way the sound rolls off my tongue.
He’s sitting almost as still as I am. His eyes are pulled together with a new kind of emotion I can’t place. “Yeah?”
“What’s it like?” I ask, each word quieter than the one before. “Outside?” In the real world. “Is it worse?”
An ache mars the features of his finely chiseled face. It takes him a few heartbeats to answer. He glances out the window. “Honestly? I’m not sure if it’s better to be in here or out there.”
I follow his eyes to the pane of glass separating us from reality and I wait for his lips to part; I wait to listen to him speak. And then I try to pay attention as his words bounce around in the haze of my head, fogging my senses, misting my eyes, clouding my concentration.
Did you know it was an international movement? Adam asks me.
No I did not, I tell him. I do not tell him I was dragged from my home 3 years ago. I do not tell him that I was dragged away exactly 7 years after The Reestablishment began to preach and 4 months after they took control of everything. I do not tell him how little I know of our new world.
Adam says The Reestablishment had its hands in every country, ready for the moment to bring its leaders into a position of control. He says the inhabitable land left in the world has been divided into 3,333 sectors and each space is now controlled by a different Person of Power.
Did you know they lied to us? Adam asks me.
Did you know that The Reestablishment said someone had to take control, that someone had to save society, that someone had to restore the peace? Did you know that they said killing all the voices of opposition was the only way to find peace?
Did you know this? is what Adam asks me.
And this is where I nod. This is where I say yes.
This is the part I remember: The anger. The riots. The rage.