I feel like something is dying, ruined beyond repair. If the Officials orchestrated our whole love affair, the one thing in my life I thought happened in spite of them—I can’t finish the thought.
The forest around me blurs into green and without the red flags marking the way, I would not know my way down. As it is, I tear at them wildly, pul ing them off the branches.
“Cassia,” he says behind me. “Cassia. Why does it matter?”
I shake my head.
“Cassia,” he cal s after me. “You’re keeping something from me, too.”
A whistle sounds sharp and clear below us. We have come so far but never made it to the top.
“I thought you were eating lunch at the Arboretum,” Xander says. The two of us sit together in the meal hal at Second School.
“I changed my mind,” I tel him. “I wanted to eat here today.” The nutrition personnel frowned at me when I asked for one of the extra meals they keep on hand, but after checking my data, they handed over the meal without further comment. They must have seen that I hardly ever do this. Or maybe there’s some other flag on my data that I can’t think about right now. Not after the revelation from Ky.
I realize how much food my container holds this time, now that it’s a general portion and not labeled specifical y for me. My portions have been getting smal er. What purpose does that serve? Am I too fat? I look down at my arms and legs, strong from al the hiking. I don’t think so. And I realize again how distracted my parents must be; under normal circumstances, they would have noticed my smal er portions and had plenty to say to the nutrition personnel about them.
Things are wrong everywhere.
I push back my chair. “Wil you come with me?”
Xander glances at his watch. “Where? Class starts soon.”
“I know,” I say. “We’re not going far. Please.”
“Al right,” Xander says, looking at me with a puzzled expression on his face.
I lead him down the hal to the classroom area and push open the door at the end. There, in a smal area like a courtyard, is the Applicable Sciences botany pond. Xander and I are alone.
I have to tel him. This is Xander. He deserves to know about Ky, and he deserves to hear it from me. Not from an Official in a greenspace, today or some other day.
Drawing a deep breath, I look down at the pond. It isn’t blue like the pool where we swim. This water is brownish-green under its silvery surface, messy with life.
“Xander,” I say, my voice as quiet as if we were hidden in trees on the Hil . “I have something to tel you.”
“I’m listening,” he says, waiting, looking at me. Always steady. Always Xander.
It’s better to say this quickly, before I find myself unable to say it at al . “I think I’m fal ing in love with someone else.” I speak so softly, I almost can’t hear my own voice. But Xander understands.
Almost before I’ve finished, he’s shaking his head and saying, “No,” putting up his hand to stop me before I say more. But it isn’t either of those gestures or that word that makes me fal silent. It’s the hurt in his eyes. And what they are saying isn’t No. It’s: Why?
“No,” Xander says again, turning away from me.
I can’t bear that, so I move in front of him, try to see him, too. He won’t look at me for a long moment. I don’t know what to say. I don’t dare to touch him. Al I can do is stand there, hoping he wil look back.
When he does, the pain is stil there.
And something else too. Something that doesn’t look like surprise. It looks like recognition. Did some part of him know this was happening? Is that why he chal enged Ky to the games?
“I’m sorry,” I say, rushing. “You’re my friend. I love you too.” It is the first time I’ve said those words to him, and it comes out al wrong. The sound of it, hurried and strained, makes the words seem like less than they are.
“You love me too?” Xander says, his voice cold. “What game are you playing?”
“I’m not playing a game,” I whisper. “I do love you. But it’s different.”
Xander says nothing. An hysterical giggle rises up in me; it’s exactly like the last time we had an argument and he refused to speak to me. Years ago, when I decided that I didn’t like playing the games as much as I once had. Xander was mad. “But no one else plays like you,” he said. And then, when I wouldn’t give in, he wouldn’t talk to me. I stil wouldn’t play.
It took two weeks before our peace was brokered, that day he saw me jump into the pool from the diving board after Grandfather jumped first. I surfaced, frightened and exhilarated, and Xander swam over to congratulate me. In the rush of the moment al was forgotten.
What would Grandfather think of this jump I’m taking? Would this be one time he would tel me to hang on to the edge with al my might? Would he say to cling to the side of the board until my fingers became bloody and scraped? Or would he say that it was al right to let go?
“Xander. The Officials played a game with me. The morning after the Match Banquet, I put the microcard in the port. Your face came up on the screen and it disappeared.” I swal ow. “And then someone else’s face appeared instead. It was Ky’s.”
“Ky Markham?” Xander asks, disbelieving.
“Yes.”
“But Ky’s not your Match,” Xander says. “He can’t be, because—”
“Because why?” I ask. Does Xander know about Ky’s status after al ? How?
“Because I am,” Xander says.
For a long moment, neither of us speak. Xander doesn’t look away and I don’t think that I can stand this. If I had a green tablet in my mouth now, I’d bite, taste the bitterness before the calm. I think back to that day in the meal hal when he told me Ky could be trusted. Xander believed that. And he believed he could trust me.
What does he think of us both now?
Xander leans closer. Blue eyes holding mine, hand hovering next to mine. I close my eyes, both to shut out the pain in his gaze and to stop myself from turning my hand up, weaving my fingers through his, leaning forward, meeting his lips. I open my eyes and look at Xander again.
“I came up on the screen, too, Cassia,” he says quietly. “But he was the one you chose to see.” And then, quick as a player making his last move, he turns away and pushes through the doors. He leaves me behind.