Oh, Im not nervous, I tell her. Trust me. I cant wait.
Only seven more days.
Chapter Twenty-Four
What is beauty? Beauty is no more than a trick; a delusion; the influence of excited particles and electrons colliding in your eyes, jostling in your brain like a bunch of overeager schoolchildren, about to be released on break. Will you let yourself be deluded? Will you let yourself be deceived?
On Beauty and Falsehood, The New Philosophy , by Ellen Dorpshire
Hanas already there when I arrive, leaning up against the chain-link fence that encircles the track, head tilted back and eyes closed against the sun. Her hair is loose and spilling down her back, nearly white in the sun. I pause when Im fifteen feet away from her, wishing I could memorize her exactly like that, hold that precise image in my mind forever.
Then she opens her eyes and sees me. We havent even started to run yet, she says, pushing off the fence and making a big show of checking her watch, and youre already coming in second.
Is that a challenge? I say, closing the last ten feet between us.
Just a fact, she says, grinning. Her smile flickers a little as I get closer. You look different.
Im tired, I say. It feels strange to greet each other with no hug or anything, even though this is how things have always been between us, how things have always had to be. It feels strange that Ive never told her how much she means to me. Long day.
You want to talk about it? She squints at me. The summer has made her tan. The sun-freckles on her nose bunch up like a constellation of stars collapsing. I really think she might be the most beautiful girl in Portland, maybe in the whole world, and I feel a sharp pain behind my ribs, thinking of how shell grow older and forget me. Someday shell hardly think of all the time we spent together when she does, it will seem distant and faintly ridiculous, like the memory of a dream whose details have already started to ebb away.
After we run, maybe, I say, the only thing I can think to say. You have to go forward: Its the only way. You have to go forward no matter what happens. This is the universal law.
After you eat dirt, you mean, she says, bending forward to stretch out her hamstrings.
You talk a big game for someone whos been lying on her ass all summer.
Youre one to talk. She tilts her head up to wink at me.
I dont think what you and Alex have been doing really counts as exercise.
Shhh.
Relax, relax. No ones around. I checked.
It all seems so normalso deliciously, wonderfully normalthat Im filled from head to toe with a joy that makes me dizzy. The streets are striped with golden sun and shadow, and the air smells like salt and the odor of frying things and, faintly, seaweed washed up onto the beaches. I want to hold this moment inside of me forever, keep it safe, like a shadow-heart: my old life, my secret.
Tag, I say to Hana, giving her a tap on the shoulder.
Youre it.
And then Im off and shes yelping and leaping to catch up, and were rounding the track and heading down to the piers without hesitating or debating our route. My legs feel strong, steady; the bite I got on the night of the raids has healed well and completely, leaving just a thin red mark along the back of my calf, like a smile. The cool air pumps in and out of my lungs, aching, but its the good kind of pain: the pain that reminds you how amazing it is to breathe, to ache, to be able to feel at all.
Salt stings my eyes and I blink rapidly, not sure whether Im sweating or crying.
Its not the fastest run weve ever been on, but I think it might be one of our best. We keep up the same exact rhythm, running almost shoulder to shoulder, drawing a loop from the old harbor all the way out to Eastern Prom.
Were slower than we were at the start of the summer, thats for sure. At about the three-mile mark both of us are starting to lag, and by silent agreement we both cut down the sloping lawn onto the beach, flinging ourselves onto the sand, starting to laugh.
Two minutes, Hana says, gasping. I just need two minutes.
Pathetic, I say, even though Im just as grateful for the pause.
Right back at you, she says, lobbing a handful of sand in my direction. Both of us flop onto our backs, arms and legs flung apart like were about to make snow angels.
The sand is surprisingly cool on my skin, and a little damp. It must have rained earlier after all, maybe when Alex and I were in the Crypts. Thinking again of that tiny cell and the words drilled straight through the wall, sun revolving through the O as though beamed through a telescope, makes that thing constrict in my chest again. Even now, this second, my mother is out there somewheremoving, breathing, being.
Well, soon Ill be out there too.
There are only a few people on the beach, mostly families walking, and one old man, plodding slowly by the water, staking his cane into the sand. The sun is sinking farther beyond the clouds, and the bay is a hard gray, just barely tinged with green.
I cant believe in only a few weeks we wont have to worry about curfew anymore, Hana says, then swivels her head to look at me. Less than three weeks, for you.
Sixteen days, right?
Yeah. I dont like to lie to Hana so I sit up, wrapping my arms around my knees.
I think on my first night cured Im going to stay out all night. Just because I can. Hana props herself up on her elbows. We can make a plan to do it togetheryou and me. Theres a pleading note in her voice. I know I should just say, Yeah, sure, or That sounds great. I know it would make her feel betterit would make me feel betterto pretend that life will go on as usual.
But I cant force the words out. Instead I start blotting bits of sand from my thighs with a thumb. Listen, Hana.
I have to tell you something. About the procedure . . .
What about it? She squints at me. Shes heard some note of seriousness in my voice, and it has worried her.
Promise you wont be mad, okay? I wont be able to I stop myself before I can say, I wont be able to leave if youre mad at me. Im getting ahead of myself.
Hana sits up completely, holding up a hand, forcing a laugh. Let me guess. Youre jumping ship with Alex, making a run for it, going all rogue and Invalid on me.
She says it jokingly but theres an edge to her voice, an undercurrent of neediness. She wants me to contradict her.
I dont say anything, though. For a minute we just stare at each other, and all the light and energy drains from her face at once.
Youre not serious, she says finally. You cant be serious. I have to, Hana, I tell her quietly. When?
She bites her lip and looks away. We decided today.
This morning.
No. I mean when . When are you going?
I hesitate for only a second. After this morning, I feel like I dont know very much about the world or anything in it. But I do know that Hana would never, ever betray menot now, at least, not until they stick needles into her brain and pick her apart, tease her into pieces. I realize now that thats what the cure does, after all: It fractures people, cuts them off from themselves.
But by thenby the time they get to herit will be too late. Friday, I say. A week from now.
She breathes out sharply, the air whistling between her teeth. You cant be serious, she repeats.
Theres nothing for me here, I say.
She looks back at me then. Her eyes are enormous, and I can tell Ive hurt her. Im here.
Suddenly the solution comes to mesimple, ridiculously simple. I almost laugh out loud. Come with us, I burst out. Hana scans the beach anxiously, but everyone has dispersed: The old man has plodded on, halfway down the beach by now and out of earshot. Im serious, Hana.
You could come with us. Youd love it in the Wilds. Its incredible. There are whole settlements there
Youve been? she cuts in sharply.
I blush, realizing Id never told her about my night with Alex in the Wilds. I know shell see this, too, as a betrayal. I used to tell her everything. Just once, I say.
And only for a couple of hours. Its amazing, Hana. Its not like we imagined it at all. And the crossing . . . The fact that you can cross at all . . . So much is different from what weve been told. Theyve been lying to us, Hana.
I stop, temporarily overwhelmed. Hana looks down, picking at the seam of her running shorts.
We could do it, I say, more gently. The three of us together.
For a long time Hana doesnt say anything. She looks out at the ocean, squinting. Finally she shakes her head, an almost imperceptible movement, shooting me a sad smile. Ill miss you, Lena, she says, and my heart sinks.
Hana I start to say, but she cuts me off.
Or maybe I wont miss you. She heaves herself to her feet, slapping the sand off her shorts. Thats one of the promises of the cure, right? No pain. Not that kind of pain, anyway.
You dont have to go through with it. I scramble to my feet. Come to the Wilds.
She lets out a hollow laugh. And leave all this behind?
She gestures around her. I can tell shes half joking, but only half. In the end, despite all her talk, and the underground parties and forbidden music, Hana doesnt want to give up this life, this place: the only home weve ever known. Of course, she has a life here: family, a future, a good match. I have nothing.
The corners of Hanas mouth are trembling and she drops her head, kicking at the sand. I want to make her feel better but cant think of anything to say. Theres a frantic aching in my chest. It seems like as we stand there Im watching my whole life with Hana, our entire friendship, fall away: sleepover parties with forbidden midnight bowls of popcorn; all the times we rehearsed for Evaluation Day, when Hana would steal a pair of her fathers old glasses, and bang on her desk with a ruler whenever I got an answer wrong, and we always started choking with laughter halfway through; the time she put a fist, hard, in Jillian Dawsons face because Jillian said my blood was diseased; eating ice cream on the pier and dreaming of being paired and living in identical houses, side by side. All of it is being sucked into nothing, like sand getting swept up by a current.
You know its not about you, I say. I have to force the words out, past a lump in my throat. You and Grace are the only people who matter to me here. Nothing else I break off. Everything else is nothing.