Today I
do
look
up.
G
rudgingly, maybe, but I do
.
Fi
rst
,
when the bell
tolls in my head
.
Then again when all the noise
begins
.
After all, the racket is disturbing me.
I am
busy wallowing in self-pity,
which I prefer
to do in silence.
The parade pass
es
the Pen
, just outside the fence, so close
, making all k
inds of noise,
people cheering, drums thumping, dogs barking.
And there he i
s.
A beacon of light in the dark.
Tristan
i
s his name.
A name I grew up hearing spoken lightly amongst my friends.
That was back when I had friends, of course.
When life was simple, if
not particularly good.
Life i
s never good as a moon dweller.
My father would tan my backside if he heard me say something like that.
“Adele,” he used to say, “we are a blessed people, a blessed family.
There are many others less fortunate than us.”
Yeah, tell that to the men who dragged you away from me.
All the girls in my old school a
re in love with Tris
tan.
Obviously
,
none of them kno
w him, but like any male celebrity
,
he captures
the attention of young, naïve fema
les.
But I’m not supposed to notice him.
I’m supposed to be different.
I’m
strong, independent
, rebellious.
My father
call
s me a fighter.
So I fight.
Against whatever is popular, whatever i
s in.
If t
he current fad i
s to wear dark-
colored tunics then I’ll
wear light.
Or
if the other girls really like
wearin
g clothes every day then I’ll
go naked.
Not really, of course, but you get what I mean.
Now, stuck in the Pen, it seems
like
an awfully big waste of energy
—to sw
im against the current
, that is
.
But I can’t take it back, not any of it, no matter how
hard I try.
No matter how much
I try
to wish it
all
away
, my past is the zit
that you pop, watch bleed,
watch heal, only to see
poking from your skin
again
a week later
.
Back to Tristan
—who i
s the polar opposite of a recurring blemish.
Blond
,
curly hair.
Seventeen but already over six feet tall.
Strong, solid frame.
A princely face.
Big,
navy blue
eyes.
An addictive smile
, with right-sized lips and
ivory teeth
.
By addictive I mean like the hard stuff—crack cocaine.
Not that I’ve tried it.
Drugs are hard to come by down here.
Not that I would try them if I co
uld.
Anyway, Tristan’s smile i
s
like crack, in a way.
You ca
n’t look
away from it even if you want to.
You need it like an addict needs
his next hit.
As he flashes
a smile,
I’m
astonished to feel
tiny bats
in my stomach
, despite the fact that his smile is targeted at his adoring fans
.
It’s like the
black-winged rats
are
flitting about in
my ribcage
with needles and thread
, patching and stitching my heart together again, using a bicycle pump to breathe life
back into it.
I’ve
only ever
seen Tristan’s
face on a sun dweller magazine, and let me tell you, the photo didn’t do him justice.
Although that
was
a fe
w years ago
, so maybe he’s
just grown up since then, become a man.
Suddenly
,
I want
to be with him.
Yeah, me and every other girl living in subchapter
14 of the Moon R
ealm.
There a
re about a thousand of them outside the Pen, lining the streets, screaming his name and throwing flowe
rs at him.
I even see
one of them chuck her undergarments at him.
I guess she’
s addicted to his smile, too.
“You li
ke him, don’t you?” a voice says from
behind me.
I turn
, unable to stop the
look of surprise that blankets
my face.
A
tall, white-haired
girl stan
d
s
before me.
A blue streak ru
n
s
dow
n one side of her hair, which is long and straight,
reaching all the way to the small of her back
.
She has
porcel
ain features, as if her face was
drawn on by an artist.
I ca
n’t help wondering w
hat a beautiful girl like her is doing in a place like this
.
For a moment
I ca
n’t speak.
I
worry
that my
stay-away-from-me
vibe
disappeared, but then I check and find it’
s still
here.
And yet this girl
penetrated
my defenses
and dared to
communicate with me?
My first thought: There must be something wrong with her.
“Can I help you?” I say
, probably not
too nicely.
My parents would
be
ashamed
of me, but what can I say, I’m
out of practice.
“I’m
Tawni
,” the girl says
, sticking out her hand.
I look at her slender digits like they’re a nest of
snake
s, hesitate, and then eventually take them
.
I shiver
at her icy touch
, but her handshake
feels
surprisingly firm for
how thin she i
s
.
“Have a seat,” I say
with a slight wave of my arm.
I’m
getting back into
the
groove, remembering
all the tricks my mom
taught me
on how
to be polite—like invitin
g a guest to sit down.
It
is
my
stoop, after all—I
si
t
here every day.
With a slight grin she ta
k
es
a seat next to me on the rock bench.
“Thanks,” she says
.
I grin
back.
I can’t believe it.
I’
m actually smiling
.
Well, sort of.
I think it’s
a pathetic attempt, but at least my lips
are curled up in a
crooked, awkward, I-don’t-know-how-to-smile-for-pictures kind of way.
You know, like those kids in Year Three who always end up with the worst yearbook photos?
The ones with the crazy eyes and fake smiles.
That’
s me
trying to smile at my new friend,
Tawni
.
Or at least
she’
s
the closest person I have
to a friend
at the moment
.
“Are you going to
answe
r my question or what?” she says
.
I wrack
my brain, trying to remember her having asked me a question.
The shock of
having
my first
human interaction
in
months
seems
to cause m
y brain
to malfunction
.
In my mind I
am
thinking
Uh-duh-uh-duh-uh-duh
, but I do
n’t think
saying
that
will
win me any points with
Tawni
, so instead I say
, “Can you repeat the question?”
I kno
w I
sound
so stupid, so formal, like a kid at school caught daydreaming by a shrewd teacher
, but you can’t take back words once they leave your mouth
, as my mom always used to point out when I would mouth off growing up
.
Tawni
should walk away from me at this point, but she doesn’t.
“Tristan—do you like him?”
“Oh,” I say.
I do
n’t understand the question.
Like
what?
His l
ooks?
Well, yeah, the way I am
staring at
him probably gave
that
away.
His
personality?
Hmmm, given I have never spoken to him—will
never
speak to hi
m—that i
s
a hard one to answer.
His ru
ling style?
To be honest, I am
a bit out of the loop when it co
me
s to politics.
I kno
w hi
s dad is a creep, but I do
n’t know
much
about him.
So, because I do
n’t really un
derstan
d the question, I just sit
dumbly, hoping she will think I’m
a nut and lea
ve me alone.
Not really.
I do
sit dumbly, but I’m not hoping she will
leave.
Truth be told
,
I
’
m
glad
to be
talking to someone.
Conversing—
in an awkward sort of way.
Tawni
seems okay, and already I am
feeling less alone.
My
urge to rush the fence and send
thousands of volts of electric
ity shooting through my body has
almost passed.
I have a sudden desire
to be close to someone again, to know someone, to have a friend
.
The desire is so stron
g it takes me by surprise.
I am
so used to keeping
everyone away from me that I forgot
how good it feels
to
have people close by.
My whole body
tingles
from the conversation.
Very weird.
Surprisingly,
Tawni
doesn’t leave.
Instead
,
she answers
for me.
“Yeah, I know.
I like him
,
too.”
I’m not
sure which of the potential questions she
is answering
, maybe all three.
His looks, his personality,
his ruling style.
Maybe she’
s another one of his crazed fans, obsessive to the point of throwing underwear.
The parade passes slowly
—Tri
stan will
be out of sight in a few minutes
,
moving down
another street, probably heading
toward
Moon
Hall, wher
e the local politicians gather to do whatever it is that they do
.
Mostly screw
us over.
I crane
my neck, trying to get a final glimpse of his smile.