Installment 3
The journey had been too quick to be real.
The couples in front of them had turned- male in front, female in back, as it had always been. The shuttle, which was a long, enclosed tube of metal on a track, was waiting at the nearby station. The first pairs began walking, orchestrated, down the street toward the first car of the shuttle. Ava remembered walking behind them. The only reason they knew where they were going was because the families were walking beside them, hemming them in. The blind walk. She had practiced walking with a blindfold on at the age of ten in her room while she was supposed to be studying. She had envisioned falling flat on her face, but it was easier than she had expected. She just put one foot in front of the other, and followed the person before her.
She remembered hearing the shuttle scoot forward as the last car opened its doors. The entry shut behind them- the last couple in, the very end of the transport vehicle. They were leaving their families, everything they had ever known. They would be shown to their new homes, which had been prepared according to their jobs and levels of stress. Those who had less stressful, less difficult jobs lived in the city in smaller apartments. The jobs with the most stress were moved out past the city, where grass and trees weren’t unheard of. They were at the back. Did it mean anything to her? No. She didn’t even think about it.
She remembered the shuttle shooting them along the ground at an incredible speed that held them all in place. It stopped periodically to deliver those in the front to their new homes. Everyone got off, one by one, in a row. Once one car was finished unloading, it detached from the train and sped off at the next turn toward some unknown location. She then understood that the order of the Pairing hadn’t been random, it had been by order of closeness of residency.
They were the only ones left. Their hands were still clutched together; their blindfolds still on, as instructed. They could have disobeyed, but they hadn’t. Despite discomfort, both of them were too afraid of straying from the beaten path to do anything about it. Her hand was wet with blood. His hand was shaking- it had been shaking ever since they had grasped hands. She wanted to smack him.
He wasn’t the one that was supposed to be upset. He had been paired with her. Everyone wanted to be paired with her. People dreamed about being paired with her, and they had told her so. She was smart, she had a fabulous outline, she was polite and mannerly and…hundreds of things, really. He had no cause for complaint.
She had a reason to complain. She was supposed to be standing with Frederick right now. They had been meant to be. Obviously, a mistake had been made. Obviously. She wasn’t supposed to be with Makon. She was supposed to be with Frederick. Everyone knew it, everyone. Why hadn’t the Council known it? It didn’t matter- to them, she wasn’t going to be with Makon, and that was that.
As the ride wore on, she realized that this stubborn logic wasn’t rational. The Council hadn’t made a mistake; they never made mistakes. She hadn’t been meant to be with Frederick, and she knew it. She had been lying to herself, very cunningly. And she had been stupid enough to believe herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Years upon years of lies, fueled by the people around her. Had they all been too foolish to realize it?
She and Frederick had been friends. Not lovers; not Soulmates. Just friends. She ought to have realized that they wouldn’t put friends together. Love wasn’t about peace. It was about…well, it was about love, and love and peace weren’t the same thing. She had never loved anyone, but she knew what it was supposed to be, and it wasn’t Frederick.
The mistake wasn’t in not putting her with Frederick. It was in putting her with anyone at all. Ava had drawn the conclusion that they had had two people left over, two people who couldn’t be matched, and they had stuck those two people together. It was the only explanation that made a particle of sense. They were the odd ones out.
They could never be made for each other.
Sorrow folded her in its arms, wrapping her tightly.
Ava finally allowed herself to sob. It wasn’t a loud sob, but it racked her thin frame, putting it through spasms. She felt Makon’s grip loosen, and it only made her sob harder. Tears streamed down her face in hot lines, bathing her cheeks in warm, salty water. She bent over, folding her chest over her stomach and bending her knees. It was an action without thought, without coherent consideration. She sobbed out all of the agony, all of the bitter disappointment.
The platform stopped.
The lack of motion only made her cry harder. They stepped off the platform to the right, and Ava felt pavement beneath her feet. She followed it slowly, putting one foot ahead of the other. She didn’t trust Makon to lead her to safety. Once she felt something soft beneath her foot, she stepped until she found something hard. When she reached a step, she stepped up, and heard the creaking of an opening door. They walked into the house, her new home, which smelled like rose petals and firewood. She did her duty- she shut the door behind her, and sealed her fate.
After that, the tears stopped. It was over. She had just shut the door on her old life, and it was time to begin the new one, however dismal it was going to be.
Ava wiped her face.
“Are you done?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” she muttered.
Ava took a deep breath. She put on a brave face. She reached up and pulled the blindfold from her eyes.
The young man that stood before her was completely unexpected.
She had known that Makon was tall, and not broad-shouldered. She hadn’t, however, foreseen his defined muscles, his long limbs. She looked from his chest to his face, which was somewhat pale. His ears stuck out a little more than was normal, but the rest of his face was proportional. Aesthetically pleasing. His black hair wasn’t shaved around the mohawk, as she had suspected. It was pressed against his skull with hair product and pushed upward to form the mohawk- it was fake. A small part of her, deep in her chest, loosened.
The only thing she had yet to see were his eyes. She reached up and gently pulled the blindfold from his face, lifting it from the side of his head and pulling it over the peak of hair.
He raised his eyes to meet hers, and her mouth cracked open, ever so slightly.
His eyes were a brilliant, striking blue. The color of the morning sky, but so intense that she felt she had never seen a color like it before in her life. Ava blinked, and her head inched closer, just to be sure that she was seeing the truth. Yes. Blue, bluer than any blue she had ever witnessed, so incredibly pure that she would never have suspected it from someone like…Makon.
She wasn’t as pretty as he had imagined she would be.
Her body was just as he had expected, because he had seen it. She was thin, proportional, decently tall. Her limbs were long and lithe, like the branches of a willow tree. He had noticed her before, just as every male in the Education Complex had. The only difference between his noticing and their noticing was that they were compelled to speak with her. Makon had chosen to believe that her outline was all there was to her, and he had stayed away.
There was nothing about her body that was amiss. It was her face that was less than he had expected. Her ears stuck out more than she had let on- her hair had hid them, when she was merely an outline. It wasn’t hard to disguise imperfections when all one had was the profile view and the contour of one’s form. Apart from ears, her lips were larger than seemed normal, and her nose was a little too wide. Makon had never judged someone’s appearance so thoroughly before, but he wanted to take it all in so that he could convince himself that he was on somewhat of an equal level…even if he wasn’t.
Her eyes were a nice color, at least- pale green. Her hair was a pleasant, dark red that had a slight wave to it as it drifted across her shoulders in subtle waves. It offset her clear, cream-colored face nicely. More nicely, he felt, than the immense difference between his pale skin and dark hair. Makon felt her scrutinizing him, looking him up and down and searching for imperfections. He felt just as he had expected to feel- exposed, alone, wishing he could hide. The boy swallowed as he realized, for the first time, what she was wearing.
There were three colors that a person could wear in the Society. Black, which indicated that one was a Foundling- very low status. Makon was clothed in black from head to toe. There was also gray- the most common color, the color of the average family. There were Councilors who wore gray, it was considered wholly acceptable. After gray was white- this color was reserved for the extraordinary families, who had done the Society a great service. Ava wore white, pure and clean.
He ought to have known. He saw in her eyes that she had just realized, at the same moment he had. He saw something rise in her, a form of disgust that he had never seen before, and yet knew as accurately as he knew his own name. It was a condescending look, a look of distaste at one’s inferiors. It was a look that he immediately hated and feared.
Be bold, Makon.
The Foundling raised his head, tilting his chin back so that he stared down the angle of his cheeks at her. His folded arms dropped to his sides and his head cocked to the side. His stare was a challenge, one that Ava met, crossing her arms and centering her weight equally between equidistant feet.
“We can take off our rings, you know,” she said. Condescending, condescending as her stare. But the information was too shocking to think of a sharp reply to.
“We can?” he asked softly. He had never taken the ring off before, not until he was in his room. He assumed that it was a ritual for before sleeping, like washing one’s face or brushing one’s hair. He put his ring on his bedside table just before he went to sleep, but only when the door was securely locked.
“Don’t you always take yours off when you go home?” she asked. She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know the rules,” he snapped bitterly. “We weren’t family. We couldn’t take off our rings around each other.”
She rolled her eyes and yanked the ring off of her finger. Ava lifted her palm and looked at it with narrowed eyes. It was red and sticky from the blood. Her middle finger had three tiny puncture wounds in its fleshy underside, where the stones had pierced her flesh. Ava still wasn’t sure how it worked, but she didn’t seem to be concerned with that at the moment. She was marveling at the color of her flesh, almost disgusted by its artistry. The mark of a Paired.
“I’m going to find a sink,” she said.
The couples in front of them had turned- male in front, female in back, as it had always been. The shuttle, which was a long, enclosed tube of metal on a track, was waiting at the nearby station. The first pairs began walking, orchestrated, down the street toward the first car of the shuttle. Ava remembered walking behind them. The only reason they knew where they were going was because the families were walking beside them, hemming them in. The blind walk. She had practiced walking with a blindfold on at the age of ten in her room while she was supposed to be studying. She had envisioned falling flat on her face, but it was easier than she had expected. She just put one foot in front of the other, and followed the person before her.
She remembered hearing the shuttle scoot forward as the last car opened its doors. The entry shut behind them- the last couple in, the very end of the transport vehicle. They were leaving their families, everything they had ever known. They would be shown to their new homes, which had been prepared according to their jobs and levels of stress. Those who had less stressful, less difficult jobs lived in the city in smaller apartments. The jobs with the most stress were moved out past the city, where grass and trees weren’t unheard of. They were at the back. Did it mean anything to her? No. She didn’t even think about it.
She remembered the shuttle shooting them along the ground at an incredible speed that held them all in place. It stopped periodically to deliver those in the front to their new homes. Everyone got off, one by one, in a row. Once one car was finished unloading, it detached from the train and sped off at the next turn toward some unknown location. She then understood that the order of the Pairing hadn’t been random, it had been by order of closeness of residency.
They were the only ones left. Their hands were still clutched together; their blindfolds still on, as instructed. They could have disobeyed, but they hadn’t. Despite discomfort, both of them were too afraid of straying from the beaten path to do anything about it. Her hand was wet with blood. His hand was shaking- it had been shaking ever since they had grasped hands. She wanted to smack him.
He wasn’t the one that was supposed to be upset. He had been paired with her. Everyone wanted to be paired with her. People dreamed about being paired with her, and they had told her so. She was smart, she had a fabulous outline, she was polite and mannerly and…hundreds of things, really. He had no cause for complaint.
She had a reason to complain. She was supposed to be standing with Frederick right now. They had been meant to be. Obviously, a mistake had been made. Obviously. She wasn’t supposed to be with Makon. She was supposed to be with Frederick. Everyone knew it, everyone. Why hadn’t the Council known it? It didn’t matter- to them, she wasn’t going to be with Makon, and that was that.
As the ride wore on, she realized that this stubborn logic wasn’t rational. The Council hadn’t made a mistake; they never made mistakes. She hadn’t been meant to be with Frederick, and she knew it. She had been lying to herself, very cunningly. And she had been stupid enough to believe herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Years upon years of lies, fueled by the people around her. Had they all been too foolish to realize it?
She and Frederick had been friends. Not lovers; not Soulmates. Just friends. She ought to have realized that they wouldn’t put friends together. Love wasn’t about peace. It was about…well, it was about love, and love and peace weren’t the same thing. She had never loved anyone, but she knew what it was supposed to be, and it wasn’t Frederick.
The mistake wasn’t in not putting her with Frederick. It was in putting her with anyone at all. Ava had drawn the conclusion that they had had two people left over, two people who couldn’t be matched, and they had stuck those two people together. It was the only explanation that made a particle of sense. They were the odd ones out.
They could never be made for each other.
Sorrow folded her in its arms, wrapping her tightly.
Ava finally allowed herself to sob. It wasn’t a loud sob, but it racked her thin frame, putting it through spasms. She felt Makon’s grip loosen, and it only made her sob harder. Tears streamed down her face in hot lines, bathing her cheeks in warm, salty water. She bent over, folding her chest over her stomach and bending her knees. It was an action without thought, without coherent consideration. She sobbed out all of the agony, all of the bitter disappointment.
The platform stopped.
The lack of motion only made her cry harder. They stepped off the platform to the right, and Ava felt pavement beneath her feet. She followed it slowly, putting one foot ahead of the other. She didn’t trust Makon to lead her to safety. Once she felt something soft beneath her foot, she stepped until she found something hard. When she reached a step, she stepped up, and heard the creaking of an opening door. They walked into the house, her new home, which smelled like rose petals and firewood. She did her duty- she shut the door behind her, and sealed her fate.
After that, the tears stopped. It was over. She had just shut the door on her old life, and it was time to begin the new one, however dismal it was going to be.
Ava wiped her face.
“Are you done?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” she muttered.
Ava took a deep breath. She put on a brave face. She reached up and pulled the blindfold from her eyes.
The young man that stood before her was completely unexpected.
She had known that Makon was tall, and not broad-shouldered. She hadn’t, however, foreseen his defined muscles, his long limbs. She looked from his chest to his face, which was somewhat pale. His ears stuck out a little more than was normal, but the rest of his face was proportional. Aesthetically pleasing. His black hair wasn’t shaved around the mohawk, as she had suspected. It was pressed against his skull with hair product and pushed upward to form the mohawk- it was fake. A small part of her, deep in her chest, loosened.
The only thing she had yet to see were his eyes. She reached up and gently pulled the blindfold from his face, lifting it from the side of his head and pulling it over the peak of hair.
He raised his eyes to meet hers, and her mouth cracked open, ever so slightly.
His eyes were a brilliant, striking blue. The color of the morning sky, but so intense that she felt she had never seen a color like it before in her life. Ava blinked, and her head inched closer, just to be sure that she was seeing the truth. Yes. Blue, bluer than any blue she had ever witnessed, so incredibly pure that she would never have suspected it from someone like…Makon.
She wasn’t as pretty as he had imagined she would be.
Her body was just as he had expected, because he had seen it. She was thin, proportional, decently tall. Her limbs were long and lithe, like the branches of a willow tree. He had noticed her before, just as every male in the Education Complex had. The only difference between his noticing and their noticing was that they were compelled to speak with her. Makon had chosen to believe that her outline was all there was to her, and he had stayed away.
There was nothing about her body that was amiss. It was her face that was less than he had expected. Her ears stuck out more than she had let on- her hair had hid them, when she was merely an outline. It wasn’t hard to disguise imperfections when all one had was the profile view and the contour of one’s form. Apart from ears, her lips were larger than seemed normal, and her nose was a little too wide. Makon had never judged someone’s appearance so thoroughly before, but he wanted to take it all in so that he could convince himself that he was on somewhat of an equal level…even if he wasn’t.
Her eyes were a nice color, at least- pale green. Her hair was a pleasant, dark red that had a slight wave to it as it drifted across her shoulders in subtle waves. It offset her clear, cream-colored face nicely. More nicely, he felt, than the immense difference between his pale skin and dark hair. Makon felt her scrutinizing him, looking him up and down and searching for imperfections. He felt just as he had expected to feel- exposed, alone, wishing he could hide. The boy swallowed as he realized, for the first time, what she was wearing.
There were three colors that a person could wear in the Society. Black, which indicated that one was a Foundling- very low status. Makon was clothed in black from head to toe. There was also gray- the most common color, the color of the average family. There were Councilors who wore gray, it was considered wholly acceptable. After gray was white- this color was reserved for the extraordinary families, who had done the Society a great service. Ava wore white, pure and clean.
He ought to have known. He saw in her eyes that she had just realized, at the same moment he had. He saw something rise in her, a form of disgust that he had never seen before, and yet knew as accurately as he knew his own name. It was a condescending look, a look of distaste at one’s inferiors. It was a look that he immediately hated and feared.
Be bold, Makon.
The Foundling raised his head, tilting his chin back so that he stared down the angle of his cheeks at her. His folded arms dropped to his sides and his head cocked to the side. His stare was a challenge, one that Ava met, crossing her arms and centering her weight equally between equidistant feet.
“We can take off our rings, you know,” she said. Condescending, condescending as her stare. But the information was too shocking to think of a sharp reply to.
“We can?” he asked softly. He had never taken the ring off before, not until he was in his room. He assumed that it was a ritual for before sleeping, like washing one’s face or brushing one’s hair. He put his ring on his bedside table just before he went to sleep, but only when the door was securely locked.
“Don’t you always take yours off when you go home?” she asked. She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know the rules,” he snapped bitterly. “We weren’t family. We couldn’t take off our rings around each other.”
She rolled her eyes and yanked the ring off of her finger. Ava lifted her palm and looked at it with narrowed eyes. It was red and sticky from the blood. Her middle finger had three tiny puncture wounds in its fleshy underside, where the stones had pierced her flesh. Ava still wasn’t sure how it worked, but she didn’t seem to be concerned with that at the moment. She was marveling at the color of her flesh, almost disgusted by its artistry. The mark of a Paired.
“I’m going to find a sink,” she said.