Matters of Circumstance (21 page)

In the meanwhile, it is recommended that you live your life as normally as you are able. The United States government will take charge of your continued protection and concealment (as you might have noticed in the newspaper this weekend). You will also be periodically checked upon. Your parents are aware of this, and they understand your circumstances. Cooperation is key if you ever wish to be well, I’m sure you understand.

Also, please note that you are required to destroy this letter after reading it, and keep this information absolutely confidential. We will know if you don’t.

Best regards,

Dorothy Williams

Agent, CIA’

Farrah finished reading the letter feeling numb both inside and out. She had been used at bait? Governmental protection? Researchers working on a cure? Loss of wings entirely?

“They want to take our wings away,” she mumbled to no one in particular. It was the only tangible thought she had right now, and it reverberated like a gong through her otherwise frozen mind.
They were working to take her wings away. They wanted to take her wings away.

“Did you get the part where we’re entitled to monetary compensation if we end up with cancer or infertility or something?” asked Neal.

She nodded.

“Yeah, I got the same letter. Doesn’t it make you feel violated? First the mix-up with the flu-vaccination—I’m still surprised I never caught the flu, actually—and now Big Brother’s babysitting us. Personally, I’m not all too impressed.”

Her eyes flicked to her parents, but it seemed that they had already had this conversation and had nothing more to add. She couldn’t read her mother’s face, but her father looked resigned. They had no more power in this situation than she did.

It scared her a little. Parents were supposed to be mighty pillars of support, right? They were supposed to do things that normal people couldn’t do, protect you when you needed it most, and neither of them could do anything.

‘They want to take my wings away. They want to destroy them.’

In all honesty she had already forgotten what Neal had just said, because at that moment she realized: “What if I want to keep them?”

*****

After all Neal had said about it, Farrah was actually pretty apprehensive about going to school on Monday. Who knew whose parent/sibling/friend had seen her in that parking lot? Who knew what she would have to hear her peers say about the experiments, and—by extension—her?

As could be expected, school wasn’t merely buzzing with the news, it was
throbbing.

“Oh my god, did you hear what happened this weekend?”

“It was all over the news—did you see?”

“You know that doctor in the office building by the laundry mat? Well he was apparently doing these experiments on all these animals for months and months, and they just busted him this Saturday.”

“I heard the CIA was there and everything; how freaking cool would that be if we saw it?”

“Dude, that guy was
my
doctor! What if he had made me one of his winged experiments?”

“Oh, gross!”

Hearing all that wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t as bad as she had feared. Farrah managed to get by pretending that it was only gossip and treating it as such—and it was gossip, technically—but a few comments wormed their way into her head all the same.

“Oh my god, did you see some of those pictures? How disgusting were those poor animals?”

“Mutilation of an animal’s natural form is one of the worst things you can do, in my opinion. They’re freaks now.”

It also kept coming to her that this week’s hot topic wasn’t merely gossip, it was
true
. And it had practically everything to do with her. Farrah thought she had gotten past that stage, but today she couldn’t help the way she listened for opinions, even if a part of her didn’t want to know because of how it would hurt her.

It was also hard to ignore her peers when they spoke directly to her.

“Farrah, did you hear about that doctor?”

“Hey O’Brien, you were at the doctor’s this weekend—was it this guy? Did you see anything?”

If she could have, a twisted part of Farrah would have laughed at the latter. Did she see anything—she had practically been in the center of it all!

She didn’t laugh, though, because it might give something away. She didn’t want to be rude, but at the same time she wanted her peers to realize that she didn’t want to be conversing about animal experiments. So she merely said that yes, Richard Roe had been her doctor, but she had had to cancel her appointment so she never saw him. She had also heard about the bust, but hadn’t seen anything. After that she pushed for a subject change—what did they do this weekend? Were there any good movies in the theatres?

If she concentrated hard enough, she would have been amazed that this news had managed to eclipse even talk of prom.

By the time she got off the morning bus Farrah knew that today would be an incredibly long day. She wasn’t sure how she would survive it.

Heading towards the concrete wall in front of the office building, where Ruby had texted that she was, Farrah made sure that the attitude she displayed was as neutral as it always was. Nobody could know that she was dreading what would happen next, otherwise they would get concerned.

Ruby had forgotten her breakfast again, so Farrah had a nectarine and a microwave chimichanga for her (already cooked, of course). It wasn’t much, but at least it would hold her over until lunchtime.

She said her greetings to most of the people she passed and finally reached the wall to see not only Ruby, but Gerry Rogerson. They were both laughing and enjoying themselves, but not in an exclusive sort of way, so Farrah decided that making an entrance would not be a social faux-pas.

“I come bearing gifts,” she announced, pulling the fruit and chimichanga out of her backpack.

“Yes!
Thank you so much, Fare,” Ruby gushed, visibly forgetting what she had been talking about. “I’ve been starving!”

“Oh man, you should have heard her stomach,” said Gerry. Then he seemed to catch himself. “Or did you?”

Farrah laughed as Ruby frowned and shoved at him.

“It was not
that
loud,” she said, but there was an unmistakably flirtatious quality to her dialogue. Farrah didn’t even think Ruby realized it, but from an outsider’s perspective her friend’s feelings were blatant.

Fortunately, Gerry just grinned and pretended like her push had hurt him. “I beg to differ,” he said. “You made the ground shake with the last one.”

“I did not!” But then her stomach growled, and loudly at that. To Ruby’s credit, it did not shake the ground like the bass at a party, but it wasn’t at usual belly-rumble volume, either.

“Just eat your breakfast, Rube,” she said, sitting at her other side and waving amiably at a passing classmate.

Ruby was already ripping open the tin foil on the chimichanga. “You don’t need to tell me,” she muttered on an afterthought.

Gerry cheerily hailed a peer before looking at the chimichanga as if he had never seen one before. He leaned forward to see Farrah more clearly. “Really? A burrito for breakfast?”

“One, it’s a chimichanga—and before you say, there is a difference,” she said, holding up her hand as he opened his mouth. “And don’t tell me that you haven’t eaten worse for breakfast. You’re a teenage guy, you have to.”

He chuckled and admitted, “Yeah, a little bit.”

“Have a good weekend, Farrah?” Shellie deadpanned as she passed.

“Eh.” She shrugged. “It was so-so. Yourself?”

“Same. See you around.”

“Yeah, sure thing.”

When Shellie passed Farrah pinned her friend’s almost-boyfriend down with a look. “Just a little bit? I smell bullshit, Ger.”

He laughed again, and Ruby said through a mouthful of chimichanga, “You’re not kidding.”

“Farrah! Gerrod! Ruby! Morning’!” said a jolly passerby, walking with her books resting in the crook of her arm and her bangs falling into her eyes.

Gerry and Farrah said their usual greetings, but Ruby was so engrossed in her food that she hardly took the time to wave. The girl didn’t seem offended, however, and merely wished them a good day as she continued on.

It was nice, Farrah thought, not to be surrounded by wing-talk.

“Hey,” said Farrah. “It’s just occurred to me that I haven’t seen hide or hair of Michael all weekend. Where is he?”

This time Ruby swallowed before answering, “Probably making out with Bianca Zahalka somewhere. I wouldn’t try looking for him.”

That was certainly a surprise. “What? Seriously?” Yeah, she knew that they still cared about each other, but she hadn’t really thought they would actually see that and get back together. Especially not this late in the year.

“Yeah. Happened over the weekend.”

Oh, no wonder it was news to her. With the weekend she’d had, she wouldn’t have heard anything even if she listened. “It’s about time. Good for them,” she said instead.

“Tell me about it.” At that point Ruby had run out of chimichanga (it hadn’t been that big to begin with), and stared at the aluminum somewhat mournfully. “God, who knew microwave food could taste so good?”

Gerry snorted, then covered his mouth and averted his eyes. Inwardly, Farrah rolled hers a little bit. She hoped she and Neal weren’t this bad, because this sort of behavior tended to get old fast for everyone that wasn’t doing it.

“Hey, did you see the news about those experiments over the weekend?” Gerry asked her as Ruby started on the nectarine.

Well, so much for no more wing-talk.

“Yeah, but the way I see it, it’s like Michael Jackson’s death all over again: way too over-publicized,” she said frankly. While she did believe that, she was hoping that he would get the hint and drop the subject more.

If Gerry’s intrigued expression meant anything, then she had no such luck. She hadn’t been very optimistic to begin with. This behavior was—unfortunately—characteristic of him. He was going to dissect this until there was nothing left to discuss, whether she helped him or not.

“I see what you’re saying, but I guess what I’m asking is what you personally think was going through that guy’s head as he did those experiments. I mean, that sounds weird, but seriously. What do people like that
think,
in your opinion?”

Times like these made Farrah wonder if more people would be on her side instead of against it if they ever found out she was an accidental experiment. Perhaps she was a sympathy-worthy freak, instead of a menace to society.

Actually, the term
freak
didn’t exactly feel right either. Farrah didn’t quite know how to describe herself anymore. She didn’t want to lose her wings after all she had been through with them—it would be like everything had happened for no reason—but at the same time she had no idea how she could try living a normal life with them, either. To be frank, nothing she thought of felt right.

She briefly considered brushing Gerry’s question off. It would probably look suspicious, for one, and even if she tried to deflect it he would probably keep pursuing the subject anyway, just because he was like that.

She couldn’t win, really. “I have no idea what a person like that thinks,” she said. “Maybe he was obsessed with birds, maybe he thought he was doing something good. Who knows?”

To her private dismay, Gerry took her response to heart and contemplated it for several seconds. Then, “I think it’s more obsession than anything. I mean, what purpose would wings serve, anyway? If you think about it like that, it doesn’t make sense.”

This reminded her of a conversation she had once had with Neal. It had been a while ago, though, so she couldn’t remember the details. “That’s true. But you never know what people like that think,” she said, almost physically itching to change the subject.

“That’s a good point.”

He visibly wanted to expand on that, but Ruby interjected before he could, “Well I think the animal’s he experimented on didn’t deserve it.” She wrapped the nectarine pit in the tin foil. “The whole situation is unfair bullshit.”

That said, she stood up and went to throw the remnants of her breakfast into the nearest trash can. She had probably intended to sound so passionate, too, and the support made Farrah want to hug her. It she could explain how much things like that touched her…

“She’s been saying that ever since she heard about the bust,” Gerry told her, thoroughly unimpressed. “It’s all she’ll say about it, actually.”

“No wonder you were quizzing me,” said Farrah. So maybe she had been conceited to think that response was all for her. Ruby, she remembered, had always had a soft spot for animals.

“Yeah, a little bit.”

Holding the edge of the wall with both hands and leaning forward some, Farrah quirked an eyebrow at him. “I have no problems calling you on your understatements, Gerry,” she said.

He laughed and said sheepishly, “Okay, I just wanted another female’s opinion on it. I can’t help it.”

That was when Ruby plopped down on the wall between them. “Has anyone seen any decent movies lately?” she said with something that sounded like genuine interest, though Farrah could see that she was trying to change the subject. “Because I’ve been, like, pretty put out by the selection at the theatres these days.”