I had the fantasy only a few times before I realized how wrong it was. If my parents had escaped to the Wilds it would make them sympathizers, resisters. It was better that they were dead. Besides, I learned pretty quickly that my fantasies about the Wilds were just thatmake- believe, little kiddie stuff. The Invalids have nothing, no way of trading or getting red patchwork quilts or chairs, or anything else for that matter. Rachel once told me that they must live like animals, filthy, hungry, desperate. She says thats why the government doesnt bother doing anything about them, doesnt even acknowledge their existence. Theyll die out soon enough, all of them, freeze or starve or just let the disease run its course, turn them against each other, have them raging and fighting and clawing one anothers eyes out.
She said as far as we know thats already happenedshe said the Wilds might be empty now, dark and dead, full of only the rustle and whispers of animals.
Shes probably right about the other stuffabout the Invalids living like animalsbut shes obviously wrong about that. Theyre alive, and out there, and they dont want us to forget it. Thats why they stage the demonstrations. Thats why they let the cows loose in the labs.
Im not nervous until I get to East End Beach. Even though the sun is sinking behind me, it lights the water white and makes everything shimmer. I shield my eyes against the glare and spot Alex down by the water, a long black brushstroke against all that blue. I flash back to last night, to the fingers of one of his hands just pressed against my lower back, so lightly it was like I was only dreaming themthe other hand cupping mine, dry and reassuring as a piece of wood warmed by the sun. We really danced, too, the kind of dancing that people do at their wedding after the pairing has been formalized, but better somehow, looser and less unnatural.
He has his back toward me, facing the ocean, and Im glad. I feel self- conscious as I plod down the rickety, salt-warped stairs that lead from the parking lot to the beach, pausing to unlace and kick off my sneakers, which I carry in one hand. The sand is warm on my bare feet as I set off toward him.
An old man is coming up from the water, carrying a fishing pole. He shoots me a suspicious glance, then turns to stare at Alex, then looks at me again and frowns. I open my mouth to say, Hes cured, but the man just grunts at me as he walks past, and I cant imagine hed bother to call the regulators, so I dont say anything. Not that wed get in trouble trouble if we were caughtthats what Alex meant when he said, Im safebut I dont want to answer a lot of questions and have my ID number run through SVS and all of that.
Besides, if the regulators did haul ass all the way out to East End Beach to check out suspicious behavior, only to discover it was some cured taking pity on a seventeen-year-old nobody, theyd definitely be annoyedand guaranteed to take it out on someone.
Taking pity. I push the words out of my mind quickly, surprised by how difficult it is to even think them. All day I tried not to worry about why on earth Alex would be so nice to me. I even imaginedfor one brief, stupid second that maybe after my evaluation Id get matched with him. Id had to shunt that thought aside too. Alex has already received his printed sheet, his recommended matcheshe would have gotten it even before his cure, directly after the evaluations. Hes not married yet because hes still in school, end of story. But he will be, as soon as he finishes.
Of course, then I started wondering about the kind of girl hes been matched withsomeone like Hana, I decided, with bright blond hair and an irritating ability to make even pulling her hair into a ponytail look graceful, like a choreographed dance.
There are four other people on the beach: a mother and a child, one hundred feet away, the mother sitting in a faded fabric folding chair, staring blankly toward the horizon, while the childwho is probably no more than three toddles in the waves, gets knocked over, lets out a shriek (of pain? pleasure?) and struggles back to her feet. Beyond them a couple is walking, a man and a woman, not touching. They must be married. Both have their hands clasped in front of them, and both look straight ahead, not talkingand not smiling, either, but calm, as though they are each surrounded by an invisible protective bubble.
Then Im coming up behind Alex and he turns and sees me, smiles. The sun catches his hair, turns it momentarily white. Then it smolders back to its normal golden-brown color.
Hi, he says. Im glad you came.
I feel shy again, stupid holding my ratty shoes in one hand. I can feel my cheeks getting hot, so I look down, drop my shoes, turn them over once in the sand with my toe. I said I would, didnt I? I dont mean for the words to come out so harshly and I wince, mentally cursing myself. Its like theres a filter set up in my brain, except instead of making things better, it twists everything around so what comes out of my mouth is totally wrong, totally different from what I was thinking.
Thankfully, Alex laughs. I just meant that you stood me up last time, he says. He nods toward the sand. Sit?
Sure, I say, relieved. I feel much less awkward once were both settled in the sand. Theres less chance of falling over or doing something dumb. I draw my legs up to my chest, resting my chin on my knees. Alex leaves a good two or three feet of space between us.
We sit in silence for a few minutes. At first Im searching frantically for something to say. Every beat of silence seems to stretch into an infinity, and Im pretty sure Alex must think Im a mute. But then he flicks a half- buried seashell out of the sand and hurls it into the ocean, and I realize hes not uncomfortable at all. After that I relax. Im even glad for the silence.
Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of yousometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.
Tides going out, Alex says. He chucks another seashell in a high arc, and it just hits the break.
I know. The ocean is leaving a litter of pulpy green seaweed, twigs, and scrabbling hermit crabs in its wake, and the air smells tangy with salt and fish. A seagull pecks its way across the beach, blinking, leaving tiny thatched claw prints. My mom used to bring me here when I was little. Wed walk out a little bit at low tideas far as you can go, anyway. Crazy stuff gets stranded on the sandhorseshoe crabs and giant clams and sea anemone. Just gets left behind when the water goes out. She taught me to swim here too. Im not sure why the words bubble out of me then, why I have the sudden urge to talk. My sister used to stay on the shore and build sand castles, and we would pretend that they were real cities, like wed swum all the way to the other side of the world, to the uncured places. Except in our games they werent diseased at all, or destroyed, or horrible. They were beautiful and peaceful, and built of glass and light and things.
Alex stays silent, tracing shapes in the sand with a finger. But I can tell hes listening.
The words tumble on: I remember my mom would bounce me in the water on her hip. And then one time she just let me go. I mean, not for real real. I had those little inflatable thing-ies on my arms. But I was so scared I started bawling my head off. I was only a few years old but I remember it, I swear I do. I was so relieved when she scooped me back up. Butbut disappointed, too. Like Id lost the chance at something great, you know?
So what happened? Alex tips his head to look at me.
You dont come here anymore? Your mom lose her taste for the ocean?
I look away, toward the horizon. The bay is relatively calm today. Flat, all shades of blue and purple as it draws away from the beach with a low sucking sound.
Harmless. She died, I say, surprised by how difficult it is to say. Alex is quiet next to me and I rush on, She killed herself. When I was six.
Im sorry, he says, so low and quiet I almost miss it.
My dad died when I was eight months old. I dont remember him at all. I thinkI think it kind of broke her, you know? My mom, I mean. She wasnt cured. It didnt work. I dont know why. She had the procedure three separate times, but it didnt . . . it didnt fix her. I pause, sucking in a breath, afraid to look at Alex, who is as still and silent next to me as a statue, as a carved piece of shadow. Still, I cant stop speaking. I realize, strangely, that Ive never told the story of my mother before. Ive never had to. Everyone around me, everyone in school, all my neighbors and my aunts friendsthey all knew about my family already, and my familys shameful secrets. Thats why they always looked at me pityingly, from the corner of their eyes.
Thats why for years I rode a wave of whispering into every room, was slapped with sudden silence when I entered silence and guilty, startled faces. Even Hana knew before she and I were desk partners in second grade. I remember because she found me in the bathroom stall, crying into a piece of paper towel, stuffing my mouth with it so no one would hear, and she kicked the door right open with a foot and stood there staring. Is it because of your mom? she said, the first words she ever spoke to me.
I didnt know there was something wrong with her. I didnt know she was sick. I was too young to understand. I keep my eyes focused on the horizon, a solid thin line, taut as a tightrope. The bay edges farther from us, and as always I have the same fantasy I did as a child: that maybe it wont come back, maybe the whole ocean will disappear forever, drawn back across the surface of the earth like lips retracting over teeth, revealing the cool, white hardness underneath, the bleached bone. If I had known, maybe I could have . . .
At the last second my voice falters and I cant say any more, cant finish the sentence. Maybe I could have stopped it. Its a sentence Ive never spoken before, never even allowed myself to think. But the idea is there, looming up solid and unavoidable, a sheer rock face: I could have stopped it. I should have stopped it.
We sit in silence. At some point during my story the mother and child must have packed up and gone home; Alex and I are all alone on the beach. Now that the words arent bubbling, rushing out of me, I cant believe how much Ive shared with a next-to-perfect stranger and a boy, no less. Im suddenly, itchingly, squirmingly embarrassed. Im desperate for something else to say something harmless, about the tide or the weatherbut as usual my mind goes totally blank now that I actually need it to function. Im afraid to look at Alex. When I finally work up the courage to shoot him a tiny sidelong glance, hes sitting, staring out at the bay. His face is completely unreadable except for a tiny muscle, which flutters in and out at the base of his jaw. My heart sinks.