Before too long, they come. Even as my classmates are still congratulating me, I hear their officious boots thumping along the hallway. By the time they open the door to my classroom, every student has taken his or her seat, standing up at attention as the team of four walks in. They are all immaculately dressed, silk suits with tight, clean lines.
“F3?” the squad leader asks from behind the teacher’s desk. Like his suit, his voice is silky, pretentious, but with undeniable authority.
I put my hand up.
All four pairs of eyes swivel and fasten on me. They are not hostile eyes, just efficient.
“Congratulations, you have the winning lottery combination,” the leader murmurs. “Come with us now, F3. You will be taken directly to the Heper Institute. Your ride is awaiting you in front of the school. Come now.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I feel like the luckiest guy in the world. But I need to pick up a few items from home, clothes.” And my shaver and scrubber and nail clipper and fang cleaner—
“No. Clothing will be supplied at the Institute. Come now.”
I’ve never been in a stretch carriage, much less one drawn by a team of stallions. The stallions are sleek black, merging seamlessly with the night. They turn towards me as I approach the carriage, their noses sniffing me out. I climb inside quickly. Students and teachers spill out of the school from the east and west wings, rushing over to gawk. But they all stand a respectful distance away, silent and still.
Because of the darkly tinted windows, it’s unnerving how pitch-black it is inside. I restrain the urge to stretch out my arms or to widen my eyes. Head bent down, I slide my body forward slowly until my knees hit the soft front of the leather seat. I hear more bodies following me in, feel the seat sag under the weight of their bodies.
“Is this your first time inside a stretch?” a voice next to me asks.
“Yes.”
Nobody says anything.
Then another voice: “We will wait for the other winner to get here.”
“Another student?” I ask.
A pause. “Yes. Shouldn’t be long now.”
I stare out of the tinted window, trying not to give away the fact that I can’t see a thing in here.
“Some papers to sign,” says yet another voice. A faint rustle of papers, the unmistakable snap of a clipboard. “Here you go.”
My eyes still trained outside, I swing my right arm in a wide arc until I hit the board. “Ooops, I’m such a klutz sometimes.”
“Please sign here and here and here. Where the Xs are.”
I stare down. I can’t see a thing.
“Right where the Xs are,” yet another voice chimes in.
“Can we just wait a bit? I’m kind of caught up in the moment—”
“Now, please.” There is a firmness in that voice. I sense eyes turning to look at me.
But just then, the limo door opens. “The other lottery winner,” someone whispers. A faint grey light from the outside spills inside. Not a moment to lose. I whip my eyes down, barely catch sight of the Xs, scribble my name down. The carriage tilts with the added weight. Then, before I can see who entered, the door swings shut and the interior is plunged into blackness again.
An ankle jams into my shin.
“Would you watch where you put your legs!” a voice snaps at me. It’s a girl’s voice, somewhat familiar.
I stare out of the window, not even trying to meet her eyes.
“Do you two know each other?” a voice asks.
I decide the safest action is to shrug and scratch my wrist. Something ambiguous that could be interpreted a number of ways.
The sound of wrists scratching in response. I’m safe for now.
“Please sign these papers. Here, here, and here.”
There is a momentary pause. Then she speaks with command. “My friends are outside. The whole school is outside. This is the best moment of my life. Can you please roll down these windows so they can see me? It’d be good for the school, for the community, to join us in this wonderful time.”
For a long time, there is no response. Then the window rolls down and the grey outside light ambles in.
Sitting across from me is Ashley June.
We ride in silence and darkness, the officials dispensing with small talk. The stallions stop at a stoplight; the clip-clop of their hooves comes to a momentary cease. The muffled, rumbling sounds of the crowd outside filters through: bone snaps, teeth grinding, the crackle of joints and ankles. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people line the streets, watching our passage.
Ashley June is silent but excited. I can tell. Snaps of her neck crack out in the darkness in front of me. I throw in a few snaps of my own, cracking my knuckles once or twice.
This is not the first time Ashley June and I have been in the dark in close quarters. It was a year or two ago, before I became the recluse I am today and just as Ashley June was beginning her meteoric rise in the ranks to the Desirable club. It was raining that night and the class was cloistered inside the school gym. Our gym teacher never showed, and nobody bothered to let the office know. Somehow – these things just have a way of happening – everyone started playing spin the bottle. The whole class, all twenty or so of us. The class divided into two circles by gender. The words – This is so lame, I’m outta here – were on my lips when the guys suddenly spun the bottle and got things going.
It whirled around in a blur, then slowed, coming to a stop at the boy sitting across from me.
Then it continued to inch forward slowly, as if through glue, until the bottle mouth, like the gaping mouth of a dying goldfish, came to a stop. Pointing right at me, dead centre, no question about it.
“Suck fest,” the boy next to me said bitterly. “So close to me.”
And it was as though an electric jolt shot through the girls’ circle. They started whispering, heads huddling together, casting me luring, excited looks. In a flash, a girl reached forward and spun the bottle. The bottle twirled fast, then broke into a slower blur. When it was crawling through its final rotation, girls leaning back in disappointment as the bottle passed them, and just as it was slowly passing by Ashley June, she reached forward and stopped it with her foot, the mouth of the bottle pointing at her.
“Wow,” she said, “figure that.” And because it was Ashley June, they let her get away with it.
A minute later, Ashley June and I were inside the closet. We stood mere inches apart, the walls enclosing us tightly. The smell of pine was thick inside, the darkness complete.
Neither of us moved. I heard the others talking outside the door, their voices miles away. I stared down at my feet, breathing through my nose in long, controlled breaths.
I thought to speak to her, this being the perfect – the only – opportunity to express what had been bottled up in me for years. Ashley June, I’ve had feelings for you for a long time. Since the first time I ever saw you. You’re the only one I’ve ever been drawn to, the only one I think of every day.
“Should we get a move on?” she asked in the darkness, her voice whispery and surprisingly low. My opportunity, so fleeting, gone.