Family

Chapter 16

Now

I awoke on a narrow cot, my eyelids fluttering as I heard something. The room I was in was small, about ten feet by ten feet, an army-style cot in the middle of it and not much else for decor. The walls were bare and set in small segments, carved squares from floor to ceiling, which was a good ways above my head. It was the room I’d woken up in after arriving at the Directorate for the first time, or at least one identical. There was a single glass pane on the wall opposite me, and I waved humorlessly at it with a big, fake, smarmy smile as I sat up and felt my feet touch the floor. The floor was dry, and squeaked as I rubbed my sock against it.

I shook the cobwebs out of my brain and rubbed my eyes. The lights turned on as I moved, either because they were set to motion sensors or because someone watching on the other side of the mirrored glass decided to grace me with illumination. I blinked as the lights flickered on overhead, the sterile fluorescence painting the scene in even starker black and white detail, the gray of the squared walls a depressing spectacle.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said aloud, feeling the pressure on my bladder that came after awakening. I waited, and didn’t hear anything for a few minutes. I stared at the walls, trying to remember which set of squares concealed the door; it was hidden into the ornamentation of the wall, which was both annoying and probably very practical for when they kept prisoners. Disorientation makes it harder to escape, after all.

I heard the faint hum of the overhead lights and nothing else save for my steady breathing, which I had been attuned to since I woke up. There was no real smell in the air; it was a room well ventilated and there was not even a scent of the air conditioner at work, or of food (though I was hungry and thought I might be imagining the smell of pancakes), and the feel of my weight on the cot was infinite, enough to make me not bother even standing up. What was the point, anyway?

I heard a series of clicks come from the wall to my left and I turned my head as the door opened, appearing as if by magic from the lined squares on the wall. A familiar face stepped inside, along with a familiar body – Zack’s dirty blond hair at the top of his lean frame, his face grimmer than I remembered it being last week, when we were still dating. “Come on,” he said with a jerk of his head toward the exit.

I stood and walked over to him, my feet feeling the firmness of the tiled floor which seemed metal, it was so cool and steely. He moved back from the door to let me pass and once I was in the colorless hall, he gestured which way to go, and that I should walk in front of him. I didn’t want to break the silence (and I didn’t really have anything to say to him, anyway), so I just went along. He led me to the bathroom and left me alone for a few minutes while I showered. There were fresh clothes laid out for me and I put them on, not bothering to dry my hair since there was no hair dryer. I didn’t have anywhere to be, anyway, and the damp coolness of it brushing against my neck was a pleasant enough sensation.

Once done, I took a syringe out of the small leather case, along with the vial of clear liquid that was waiting. I tapped my arm until I found a vein and slipped the needle in, not even wincing at the pinching sensation. I was getting pretty good at this. I put my gloves back on when I was done, ignoring the little drop of blood that sprang up; it would be gone in a minute.

I pulled on the University of Minnesota sweatshirt that was waiting for me. It had a familiar aroma, and I put my nose up to it – it smelled like Zack. The jeans were all me, though, and I put them on along with socks and walked out of the bathroom with my wet hair still against my neck. He was looking down as I came out of the bathroom. I could have knocked him senseless by the time he had brought his head up, but why? Where else would I go? What would I do?

He followed me back to my little square room and I went inside wordlessly, turning to look at him as he stood at the entrance, staring in at me, face inscrutable. “How long until I can get out again?” I asked. “Because if you’re going to keep me under wraps for a good long while, you might consider transferring me to Arizona—”

“You’re not going to Arizona,” he said, and I watched his brow crease and turn down.

“You sound pretty sure of that,” I said, and I realized I sounded as sad as he did.

“You didn’t betray the Directorate,” he said, and he looked away for a moment before his gaze came back to my eyes. “I’d stake everything on it.”

“Nice to know somebody believes.” I felt that burning at my eyes again. “Even after—”

“Don’t.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

He took a step back and his hand caught the door, ready to close it, but he hesitated. “Why?”

I stared at him, trying to pretend I didn’t know what he meant. “Why what?”

“You know,” he said.

I shrugged and tried to play it off. “I don’t. Why what? Why am I in here? Great question.I’d like to know the answer myself—”

“Why did you break up with me, then almost sleep with another guy?” I blinked as he said it, felt the gut punch of emotion that came with it, and resisted it with everything I had, tried to pretend there were little pipes that ran through my whole body that carried emotion. I could feel them twisting my stomach and I tried to pretend I could just shunt them away, away from my heart, from my eyes.

I let the question hang in the air between us as though it were a bomb, ready to explode, and all it would take is the lightest touch from me to set it off. I didn’t look at him, but took a few steps back to where I knew the cot was, and I lowered myself down on it. “I don’t know,” I said, more out of reflex than truth. I was stalling, unsure of what to say or how to say it.

“That’s it?” He shook his head and started to shut the door.

“Wait,” I said, quiet. “Because there’s no future for us.” I looked up at him and saw eyes filled with pain. “None. With me, you’d always live half a life, and you didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger, so I did.”

“Oh, you’re so noble,” he said, words dripping with sarcasm. “Thank you for thinking of me when you did that. When you started to sleep with the other guy, were you thinking of me then, too?”

“Yes,” I said. “I was thinking of you then. I was wishing it was you.”

The little head of steam, of righteous indignation, I could see building in him just deflated. His wounded look crumpled into something else, his face fell, the anger gone. “Why did you do it?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I was a little drunk. Not too gone, but just…there. And he touched me, and I realized I could touch, and I just…” I shook my head. “I just did. It was stupid, and it was reckless, and it was unlike everything I knew I should do, and I did it anyway. Because I wanted to.” I blinked at him. “Because I couldn’t with you.” I didn’t put an ounce of blame into the last bit, just let it ooze with regret and pain, and I saw him take another step back, stare at me from the door for another minute without saying anything, until he finally closed it. The clunking noise it made as the lock slid back into place was the last noise I heard for several hours afterward.

The look on his face stayed with me long, long after that.