Not that my crush on Tristan is really a crush. At least, it doesn’t feel like one. But I know how it will end. Just like with Torrin. I will never say one word to him. Which is probably a good thing, given how poorly I’d conversed with my new friends.
I think about Tawni. She’ll be getting out of the Pen in six months. It seems like a blink of an eye compared to my sentence. But there’s something about her story that doesn’t make sense to me. For one, she never explained why she was trying to illegally travel interdistrict. She’d also said very little about her parents—except that she didn’t think that people should be judged by who their parents are. I have a feeling her crime is linked to what she’d said about her parents, like two puzzle pieces that look so different until you fit them together, at which point they look like they’ve always been joined.
Once she is gone it will be just me and Cole. Which will be fine because I like Cole. Although I am still shocked by what he did for me earlier, during the riot.
But then Cole will be gone six months after Tawni. And I will be alone again. Not that it matters, because I will be leaving the Pen, too, headed for whatever prison I will spend the rest of my life in.
I use the palm of my hand to smack the side of my head a few times. I feel my brain jostle back and forth a bit, feel a dull headache start to form in my skull. I probably killed a few brain cells, but it is worth it. A little bit of physical pain always seems to help with the mental pain, helps me to forget about the reality of my life, like a shot of whiskey helps the miners forget about the monotony of the mines.
It also helps me focus. On the puzzles. For the past six months I’ve felt sorry for myself, and there was really nothing in my life to take my mind off of my sorrows. With Cole and Tawni’s sudden entrance into my life, I now have puzzles to solve. Clearly they haven’t told me everything. I mean, who would? They’ve just met me, barely know me. I certainly haven’t told them everything about my past, although I’ve told them a lot more than I planned to.
Another thing Tawni said was, “I don’t think he’s a bad guy,” when she was talking about Tristan. Her statement is a mystery to me. I mean, she doesn’t seem like the type to give anyone from the ruling party the benefit of the doubt, especially the President’s eldest son. And yet the way she’d said it, I feel like she was confident in her statement, like she added the words I think just to make it sound like she was unsure, when really, behind her words is a certain knowledge that only comes from firsthand experience. Like I said, it is a mystery. One I am determined to get to the bottom of.
My thoughts are interrupted when an electronic voice blares through the speaker in my ceiling. “All guests are in their rooms. Lights out in exactly five minutes.”
I roll my eyes like I usually do when I hear the announcement. They are always trying to make us feel better about our situation. It is like just because we are juveniles, the so-called adults can’t be honest with us. Guests? Really? We are locked up, our freedoms restricted beyond recognition. Everyone knows we are inmates, plain and simple.
And rooms? Come on. I look around my “room” as if I am seeing it for the first time. No windows. A thin slat in the door is used to let air in and to speak through. It’s a cell. Sometimes I awake from a restless sleep and find the walls closing in on me, threatening to suffocate me, crush me. Sometimes I wish they would.
I’ve heard they named it the Pen after the word playpen, like a young child’s little safety enclosure, full of toys and bright-colored bobbles and trinkets. But it just makes me think of the longer version of the word it is really short for: penitentiary.
I’m not sure whether they sugarcoat everything to help us sleep at night, or to help them sleep at night. Either way, it is a waste of time.
I feel tired, but not sleepy. I am exhausted from the day’s activities. Not the lounging around in the yard all day, weighing the pros and cons of giving myself the shock of my life; rather, my interaction (if that’s what you call it) with Tristan, the conversations with my two new friends, and my near escape from the riot. For some reason I feel like I can’t hold the weight of my body up for one more second. But I can’t sleep either, because there is too much to think about. Oh yeah, and I have to pee, too. Which is difficult when I feel too drained to even stand up.
The lights go out and I’m thrust into abject darkness.
I learned in school about the biological changes that humans have slowly undergone, generation after generation, since moving underground. We gained improved night vision due to long exposure to dim or no lighting. Our senses of hearing and smell have been heightened, making us less reliant on our slightly improved sight. Our skin has become paler and dustier. Human lungs are now more resistant to the constant intake of rock dust. Evidently, average life expectancies are about twenty years shorter than when humans lived aboveground, but no one really talks about it. Long story short: we’ve adapted, for better or worse.
I manage to half-roll off the thin padding on my stone cot and stumble to the corner, where there is a small hole in the floor. I squat and manage to relieve myself before collapsing back into bed.
I try to take my mind off of the puzzles that have been presented to me. For one, I know I won’t be able to solve them just by thinking about them. Not yet, anyway. I need more facts, need to ask Tawni and Cole some subtle questions. And listen to them. Both their words and the true meaning behind their words. It’s something my dad taught me. He’d say, “You’ll learn far more by listening than you ever will by speaking, Adele. Don’t just focus on the words. Listen to the tone, to the emotion, to the hidden words—the ones that are unspoken.”
So I think about something else to help me fall asleep. There isn’t much to think about except my past. I remember when I was a little girl, in Year Three, and the teacher asked each of us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Most of the boys said miners, like their dads, and most of the girls said mothers. I said I wanted to be a writer, traveling across the Tri-Realms in search of the inspiration for my next novel. The kids laughed at me. Only sun dwellers could be writers, they said. They were safe laughing at me in the classroom—I think the teacher even smirked a little. But after class was a different story. A boy named Garon had laughed the loudest in class. I knocked him over and bloodied his nose. He wasn’t laughing anymore.
I read a lot as a kid. But not the crap written by the sun dweller novelists. Old books. Ones that had been saved by my family when people started going underground. They’d been passed down for generations, their covers worn and torn, their pages yellowed and brittle. Magical books written during another time, when a good imagination was considered valuable. My favorites were the Harry Potter books. Like me, my grandmother had grown up with the witches and wizards of Hogwarts. We used to talk about Harry Potter together. How we wished we had magic wands that we could use to change things, to make life better for everyone. Now I feel even closer to Harry than I did as a kid. After all, we both lost our parents. He lost his to death, and I lost mine to the government.
In the dark, I bend my legs and flex them at the knees a few times, trying to get some feeling back. My eyes are quickly adjusting to the dark and I can just make out the faint outline of the slot in the door. I close my eyes but sleep continues to evade me.
As a kid, I also read books about space travel. About what it would be like to live somewhere other than earth. Like the moon, for example. In my books I saw pictures of the moon, looking all bright and desolate in the night sky, surrounded by twinkling stars and wispy clouds. Weird that we’re called moon dwellers. We’re still stuck on earth. Well, not on earth so much as in it, at least a mile below the deadly surface. I’m not sure who the idiot was who decided to call us moon dwellers, but I’d guess he or she was a sun dweller. It seems like most of the dumb ideas come from them. In school they told us that the logic behind the names is related to how bright each light source appears in the sky. For example, the sun appears the brightest—at least that’s what
we’re told and how it looks in the pictures—and therefore, those nearest to the surface should be called sun dwellers. We are next and are like the moon, second brightest. At the bottom, of course, are the star dwellers, miles from the earth’s surface. I also heard that there are some references to this kind of thing in the Bible, too, but I’ve never read it so I’m not sure if it is true. Bottom line: I think the names are stupid.
I’d prefer them to be called Deep, Deeper, and Deepest.
No matter how they spin things, it’s a class system, one predicated on those at the top being worth more than those at the bottom. My grandmother said the distinctions between the classes are more obvious in our world, but that it had been the same when people lived above the earth, only no one talked about it as much.
Finally, I fall asleep.
He touches me. His fingers are as gentle as feathers, but without the tickle, lingering on my knees before moving to my hips. Despite their softness, his hands are strong, firm, like they could crush stone with a single squeeze.
I am glad I don’t need to talk to him, don’t need to open my mouth and bumble through an awkward introduction, one that will inevitably end with my foot in my mouth.
Words aren’t necessary. Actions say so much more.
His midnight-blue eyes never leave mine, and although I feel embarrassed by the attention, I don’t look away. Pulling me closer, he touches my hair, opening his fingers like the teeth in a comb. His lips are so close I can feel his hot exhalations meeting my own, swirling together, mixing.
* * *
I wake up. It’s still dark, but only because the lights are out, and underground it’s always dark if the lights are out. I can sense that day has arrived. That I’ve made it through another night. Surprisingly, I feel well rested. Which is very unusual. I can’t remember even one morning in the Pen when I felt like I had a satisfying sleep.
I sigh, remembering my dream. I always remember my dreams. It’s a blessing and a curse. When I was young I used to have terrible nightmares about drowning. My dad said it was because I’d nearly drowned when I was really little. I was just a toddler, doing what toddlers do best: wandering off and getting into trouble. Anyway, I fell into a shallow well, one of the many that provide water to our subchapter. Luckily, someone heard me scream when I fell, and managed to ride the bucket down and then keep me afloat until someone else could pull us up. I have no memory of the actual event, but used to relive the feeling of the water swarming around me, threatening to suck the life out of me, on an almost nightly basis.
I haven’t had a drowning dream for a while now—for that I’m thankful.
My latest dream has me puzzled. Even when I had a crush on a guy in school, I didn’t dream about him, thank God. To be honest, I feel kind of silly, like I am just another obsessed fan of Tristan’s. I feel like slapping myself across the face, and usually I would, but I am too busy trying to get the dream back into my mind.
Although I am awake now, my body still feels a bit tingly, almost as if his hands are still on me, his lips only inches away from mine. I shiver in the dark.
The lights come on and the computer voice comes over the speaker. “Good morning. All guests may now exit their rooms for the day,”—I hear the click of the lock on my door—“breakfast will be served in the cafeteria.” As if it would be served anywhere else.
The dream vanishes and I lie in bed for a few minutes, blinking, trying to get it back. I can’t. It is like the dream has been permanently deleted from my memory. Logically, I know what the dream was about, but I can’t seem to remember the feelings from it. All I know is that it felt good—maybe better than anything I’ve ever felt before. I wonder if it’s what sex will feel like.
Some kids at my old school have already had sex, even though it is strictly forbidden until marriage. I mean, the lecturers taught us about it, and how it is used for procreation and everything, but never about how it will feel. We learn that on our own, some by doing it, and others by listening to kids who’ve done it talk about it. I’ve never really thought much about it until now. Tristan.
I sigh again, this time not because I remember the dream, but because I forget it. I swing my legs over the bed and force myself up. Some days I feel like staying in bed all day, but that is not permitted. One of the stewards—their name for prison guards—will eventually come and make me leave my cell, by force if necessary. It isn’t worth the hassle.
I go through my morning routine—use the “bathroom,” do a few stretches, feel sorry for myself—and then exit my “room.” First stop is the washroom. To my surprise, I find myself hoping—almost wishing—that Tawni will be in there. It feels weird looking forward to seeing someone again. Especially someone in the Pen. All the people I usually want to see are on the outside. Like my sister. And my parents. And now Tristan.
The washroom has a few toilets, but I prefer the hole in my floor, because none of the stalls have doors. There are no mirrors—no one cares about their appearance in the Pen—and a simple trough-style basin covers one whole wall.
A bunch of girls are already using the trough: washing their faces, combing their hair with their fingers—almost the way Tristan had in my dream—brushing their teeth. The Pen management provides loads of crappy, gritty toothpaste, but no toothbrushes, so we’re forced to use our fingers. I scan the line of girls, looking for Tawni’s long, white hair, streaked by blue on one side.
She isn’t here.
I feel a bump from behind as another girl pushes past me and into the washroom. “Move it,” she says. Evidently I’m standing in the doorway. Even still, a simple “Excuse me” would’ve done the trick. Ahh, life in the Pen—less fun than sex, or so I suspect.
I go to work on my teeth, rubbing hard with my index finger to clean off the stale saliva still inhabiting my mouth. I rinse my mouth out with a swish of brown water from the rusty faucet. I can never understand why all the water in the Pen is brown. It’s like they add dirt to it or something. Most of the water in the Moon Realm—or at least our subchapter—is clear, having been filtered naturally as it flows through the rocky tunnels below us. It’s just another way to punish us, I guess.
I skip a shower, because I’m really not in the mood to be naked in front of a bunch of other girls—there are no private showers in this hotel. Plus, we run out of hot water in about two minutes, so unless you are the first one in, you have to shiver under the cold, drippy showerhead. Needless to say, I’ve reduced my standards on hygiene to about two showers a week, and quick ones at that. No one really notices the smell, though, because we all smell equally nasty. Freshly showered, smelling like soap, you’d actually stick out like a clown at a funeral.
I go to find Tawni, or Cole, or both.
I guess that they will be hungry, like me. I find them before I make it to the cafeteria. As I push through the crowds of kids, all zigzagging in different directions, I spot Tawni’s white hair next to Cole’s dark skin. The contrast is stark.
They are slightly apart from the mob of bodies, against the wall, leaning in close to each other. Their heads are together and their lips are moving, like they’re whispering. It seems like such a funny place to have a secret conversation, but no one seems to notice. I remember something my dad used to say, about how sometimes it’s best to hide in plain sight. It’s like that now. If they were further away from the crowds, crouching behind some rock in the yard, or tucked away behind a door or something, they probably would’ve drawn everyone’s attention. Instead, they’re invisible.
I move closer, staying behind a really big guy who’s lumbering along in front of me. Next to Tawni is a janitor’s closet. The door is slightly ajar and I manage to slip from behind the big guy and into the closet. Out of the crowded hallway I can hear much better and, because they are next to the wall, their voices are amplified and projected into my hiding place. I push my hair away from my ear and listen intently, trying to pick up every word they are saying.
Tawni says, “Look, Co
le, I know what I saw. He looked at her—no, it was more than that: he stared at her, right at her. They connected, in some weird way.”
Cole’s deep voice grumbles through the door. “What are you saying? That it was love at first sight? C’mon, Tawni, really?”
“I don’t know,” Tawni says. “I just know there was something. Not love necessarily. Just interest.”
“What difference would it make? He’s a creep anyway. Just like his father. He comes down here and parades himself around, flaunts his power, allows his ugly mug to be put on every sun dweller magazine.” My nostrils flare suddenly and I feel my face go red, heating up. It is anger. Directed at Cole for the things he’s saying about Tristan, particularly about him being ugly. They haven’t said any names but it is obvious who they are talking about. Me and Tristan.
“He’s not a creep. I know what I heard my parents say,” Tawni says.
“Yeah, right.”
“How long have we known each other, Cole?” Tawni asks.
There is a pause, like Cole is trying to remember, or count the days or something. Then he says, “Five years.” Five years? I am shocked. I expected him to say three months, or maybe six at the most. They’ve known each other since before the Pen. They must’ve met in school. That changes everything. The deepness of their relationship; what level of friendship I can have with them; what I can share with either of them.
“Yeah, five years, Cole. And how many times have I lied to you?”
“Never. At least not that I know of.” Cole sniggers to himself.
“Never—that’s right.”
“You might have just misheard, or misunderstood something.”
Tawni’s voice is rising. She is getting emotional. “No. No, I didn’t. I heard both my mother and my father say it before I ran away. I wouldn’t have left if I wasn’t certain. They are spies for the President, Cole. They know things. All I really needed to hear was that they were working for the sun dwellers, and then I was ready to leave, run away forever. But they kept talking. They said how Tristan is different from the President, different from his own brother. How they didn’t think he would carry on the traditions of his father if he became President. They were worried about that. I always wondered why we had so much more money than everyone else. I mean, I went to the same school as you. You couldn’t afford to eat, and I was eating with a silver spoon. Kickbacks for their dirty work. They were afraid the money would stop if Tristan took over. That’s how I know, Cole. That’s how I know!”