Page 11 of Xantera
I stare at the grayish brown lumps of my uneaten chicken, my anger crashing back down into the pit of my stomach and shriveling up into something else. Something smaller and sadder.
“I understand,” I whisper.
“What? You—I…”
I look back up at him and gather a deep breath. Refusing to glance at the camera above the screen in our living room, I lean toward him and whisper so quietly that nobody else would be able to hear if they decided to listen in to our individual unit in this exact moment of time, “We won’t be in the family-making stage for several more years, you know. We don’t have to… be together on Sundays—not in that way. There’s no camera in our joint room. Nobody will ever know if we just take a break from pretending and forcing ourselves.” I try to gather the words in my mouth. “We can just be friends behind closed doors.”
Malcolm tips his head like he didn’t hear a thing I just said. Like he’s in as much denial as I’ve always been. “Are you feeling okay? Did you pick up a fever from your shift today?”
“No,” I insist. “I mean, yes, I feel fine, and no, I don’t have a fever. Admit it, Malcolm.”
“Admit what?”
“That you don’t feel for me. Not like you should.”
“We shouldn’t think like that,” he replies much too quickly. “That would be irresponsible of us.”
“Irresponsible?” I laugh despite the sadness sitting in my chest. “It’s our private life, isn’t it? No one else has to know what we do in our own home. Maybe we can start as friends since we were never given the chance to get to know each other.” I can’t help but glance at the camera this time, and now I lower my voice even more. “Just one little difference behind the door of our bedroom. How would they know?”
Of course, what I’m asking of him is a lot more serious than ‘just one little difference.’ It’s the Cardinal Rule I hate the most, the one I’ve never been able to fully follow:Don’t keep secrets from authorities.
“As long as no one asks us,” I press, “then we’re not lying.”
I see the moment all pretense drops from Malcolm’s face, leaving nothing behind but that ache that echoes mine.
“Friends?” he says, tasting the word as if it’s something foreign that he can’t comprehend.
“Friends,” I whisper back.
Six long months seem to flash between our eyes. Six months of him pumping into me while I stare at the ceiling and push moans out of my throat, wondering when it’ll start to feel good for me, too, or if I’ll always have to do it myself. Six months of polite breakfast and dinner conversations that amount to nothing more than the same twelve words recycled over and over again until he’s more of a stranger than when we were first assigned to each other.
Finally, relief shutters in Malcolm’s eyes.
He nods.
I nod back and settle into my chair again.
Malcolm and I might be civil partners in the system, but we aren’t together like that within these four walls. We’ll still have to spend a few hours in our joint room together on Sanctuary Sunday, but if we just lie there without doing anything… well, what the Guardians don’t know can’t hurt them. Or us.
And for the first time in six months, Sunday doesn’t sound too bad.
After washing our dishes side by side, Malcolm and I bid each other goodnight with slight smiles on our lips and retire to our separate rooms.
I shed my cloak, hearing the smallthunkas the thing inside it hits the ground. But I don’t inspect that thing yet. First, I shower off the day’s events, letting the water blister my pores until my skin flares with patches of red. When it automatically shuts offafter five minutes, I take my time drying my hair, slipping into my nightgown, and pulling the covers up to my chin.
Then and only then do my thoughts explode.
Diggory. Oh, poor, poor Diggory.
What could he have possibly been thinking?
What could he have possibly beendoing?
Did he really get a concussion, was he really loopy and delusional, or did he have another motive? Was he trying to break into someone’s unit? Did he succeed?
And what is that thing he threw as they were dragging him away?
I can’t resist much longer. I tip sideways, reaching for my cloak that I tossed onto the floor and dig for that chained vial in the inside pocket to inspect it.
