by Carrie Ryan
It doesn’t matter why he can’t kiss me—only that he’s rejected me so thoroughly. I inhale deeply, welcoming the biting cold into my lungs. If only it could freeze me inside. I don’t understand why I’m still out here, why I haven’t stomped down the steps escaping from him and this moment.
“I care,” I whisper, turning just enough to see him from the corner of my eye.
He stops pacing and looks at me, holds out a hand and then lets it drop. Emotions war across his face. “I’m sorry, Annah,” he says softly. He’s standing in the shadows, the remnants of the evening having faded while we were playfully chasing each other around the roof.
“You have to understand that I’m dangerous. It doesn’t matter what you or I want. Don’t you see that?” He’s almost begging.
Not knowing what else to do, I nod.
“I can’t do this,” he says, but I hold up a hand to stop the excuses. I’ve let this entire evening spiral out of control. A control I’ve spent the last several years perfecting. I can feel the anger I’ve been holding back too long swelling.
Teeth clenched so that I don’t say something I may regret, I whip open the door and step toward the darkened stairwell.
“Annah, wait,” Catcher calls after me, but I don’t listen. The rage simmers, rising up my throat like a hum. Words swirl in my head, hateful words directed at me and at him. This is who I am—broken glass and bile. I got too comfortable, let down my defenses.
“You don’t understand.” He chases after me, and just as I wrench the door closed he grabs it, holding it open.
I spin on him, eyes flashing. “I understand fine. I’m not good enough. Everyone wants Abigail. Beautiful, perfect Abigail and not me.”
He reaches for me and I rip my arm from his grip. His eyes narrow with what looks like confusion.
“Her name’s Gabry,” he says, which sets my skin on fire as if I’ve been scolded.
I scream in frustration. “She’s Abigail! She’s always been Abigail! That’s who my sister is. Pretty, flawless Abigail while I’m ugly, scarred Annah.”
He stands dead still, the snow swallowing all noise around us. I gulp in the frozen air.
“Why do you do this to yourself?” he finally asks, his expression a mixture of pity and concern. Heat pours off him and radiates in the air between us. I cross my arms over my chest and step down onto the next stair.
“Do what?”
He raises his hands as if to grab my shoulders and then pulls at the back of his neck instead. “Why do you always want people to see you as ugly?”
His words drain my anger, leaving only the pain behind. If all the air were sucked from the world and turned my body inside out, it wouldn’t hurt as much as his words at this moment. “What?” I intend for the question to come out as a growl but instead it’s only a whisper.
I step down onto the next stair and then another, but he advances, looming over me as I descend into the darkness. “You don’t ever let anyone see who you really are, and whenever anyone gets close or even thinks about getting close, you thrust your scars in their face like they’re some sort of badge. A way to ward people off. It’s like you want them to see only the worst parts of you. Like you think you’re ugly.”
“I am ugly!” I roar at him. “What are you not seeing?” I scrape my hair back from my cheeks. “This isn’t beauty!” I scream at him, tilting my neck to the light struggling through the door. He’s now the one backing up the stairs and I keep climbing until we’re out in the snow.
“Look at me!” I rip off my coat and then my shirt until I’m just wearing a short tight tank top, my skin on fire from rage.
The scars stand out like white streaks tearing my skin. Over my shoulder and down my ribs. Across my hips and snaking along my abdomen, trailing down into my pants.
“Annah,” he says, holding up his hands and turning his head as if I’m naked.
“No!” I shout at him. “You wanted to know why I force people to see how ugly I am. It’s because that’s who I am. It’s all I am.”
I grab his hand and press it to my sternum. His touch is scorching hot and he closes his eyes.
“Annah,” he says again, a plea and a warning.
“You look at me, Catcher,” I growl at him.
He stares down at me, his eyes glistening. I’m panting with rage and humiliation and regret as it dawns on me what I’m doing.
Catcher’s fingers curl against me ever so slightly, the pad of his thumb whispering along one of the scars on the top of my left breast.
I choke back the resentment that crawls up my throat as I yank myself away from him and grab for my shirt and coat. His hand still hovers in the air where my body used to be.
Furiously I turn around and shove my arm through the damp frigid sleeve of my shirt while I stumble away. I want to explain to him about all the times I’ve been taunted for the way I look. About the men who would see me walking through the City and who would shy away when they saw the scars. As if the marks made me worthless.
But how could he understand? He’s beautiful, with high cheekbones and blond hair that falls over his eyes. A crooked smile that burrows inside even the coldest heart. Broad shoulders and long fingers and a heat that’s all-consuming.
Nothing mars his face. His skin is smooth and warm and soft.
He doesn’t understand what it’s like for me to see my sister—so perfect in every way—and how Elias wants her and not me. As if I never could be good enough.
And now Catcher too.
“I think you’re beautiful, Annah,” he says.
I scowl. “I’ve heard those words before,” I choke out, buttoning my shirt crookedly. I don’t dare look at him. I don’t tell him Elias told me that just before leaving me. Just before running away and finding someone else to love.
I throw open the door to the stairwell again, frigid snow seeping through my clothes and burning my skin. “It’s nothing but a lie,” I tell him. I make the mistake of glancing up at him as I stumble down the steps. He stands in the middle of the roof, his hand extended as if he can still feel my flesh under his own.
I’m lying in my bed trembling with the emotions raging through me while I try to find warmth under a dozen quilts. I cringe as I remember the things I said to Catcher. As I remember twirling with him under the snow and how I ruined it all.
I don’t understand how I can know so little about love and how it works. How I can be so bad at it when it’s all I’ve ever wanted.
All I’ve ever known is about leaving or being left.
I’m beating my fist against a pillow in frustration when there’s a knock at the door and my sister walks into the room. I can tell just from a glance that she knows something’s going on.
Without a word she hands me a tin mug of steaming tea and sits on the chair by the window. The only light in the room seeps in from the hallway, yet even so I can see that her white-blond hair is braided, wisps escaping around her head like down feathers. I resist the urge to raise my hand to my own dirty hair and let the tea scald my tongue and burn its way to my stomach. Ever since she’s been back, that little string between us has grown tighter—my awareness of when she’s near and what she’s feeling.
“You’ve been crying,” she says.
Seeing her sitting there, I think about the Forest. Over and over again I think about her on the path. I relive walking away from her and leaving her. The bright red blood dripping along her shin and the sound of her voice calling me.
I see her falling and I’m not there to grab her before she hits the ground. If I’d just been standing next to her, if I’d just been there for her I could have caught her. I could have protected her. We could have made it back to the village and grown up safe and loved.
“What was it like to have a mother?” I ask her. Our mother died giving birth to us, so even if we had gone back we’d have never known her. It would have always been just the two of us and our father, Jacob.
Her eyes crinkle around the edges
as she stares at me, her lips pressing a little tight. I’ve stared at myself enough times that I know every expression on my sister’s face. She feels sorry for me.
She shrugs and looks away as if she’s afraid telling me will only highlight what I grew up missing.
“Please,” I whisper because I know my voice would crack if I spoke with any force.
She rubs her fingers along her lips. My own nervous gesture, except usually I trace the scars on my jaw.
“I miss her,” she finally says. “Elias told me she wanted to come up to the Dark City with him to look for me, but they needed her in Vista. He said she was the one to lead the revolt overthrowing the Recruiters and forcing them from town. She’s in charge of it all now—in charge of making sure everyone in Vista survives.”
She looks down at her feet tracing invisible patterns over the floor. “Her name is Mary and she rescued me from the Forest. But she never told me that. I grew up thinking I was hers. I didn’t remember anything from before—nothing. When I found out …” She shrugs. “I’m sorry.” My sister’s voice is quiet as she talks down toward her tea.
I narrow my eyes. “What do you have to be sorry for?” I ask, genuinely confused.
She takes a deep breath, her fingers tightening around the mug until her knuckles glow white. She finally looks at me. “I’m sorry I had a mother when you didn’t. I’m sorry I had such an easy life growing up when you didn’t.” I’m about to interrupt her but she shakes her head as she takes a deep breath.
“I’m sorry I forgot about you. I’m sorry I didn’t even know to go looking for you. I didn’t even know to try to rescue you.” She pauses, her shoulders hitching a little. “I’m sorry Elias fell in love with me and not you.”
I wince at those last words but she’s not finished. She comes around to sit next to me, setting down my mug and pulling my hands into hers. I can feel the heat from the tea radiating off her skin.
“I see the way you look at me now, Annah. I see the resentment in your eyes.”
“Abigail—” I protest.
“It’s Gabry,” she says, her voice hardening. “And you know well enough that I can read every expression on your face the same way you can read mine.”
I pull away from her and move into the corner of the bed, tugging the covers up around me. She faces me, hands balled into fists at her sides. “I’m not perfect, Annah. I’ve never been perfect. I’ve been a horrible person many times and—”
I can’t help it; I start laughing. “You?”
“It’s not funny!” she shouts, and I’m surprised by her outburst. She paces across the room. “You don’t know what it’s like to have forgotten everything. Everything. To find out that the life you thought you knew was a lie.”
Her lips tremble and I can tell she’s close to tears. I never realized how much this affected her. “You really don’t remember?” I ask. “Any of it? Me? Our father? Elias and everyone else?”
She looks away from me but not before I see the way her eyes glisten. I lean back against the wall. What would it be like to lose your past like that? I try to decide if I’d be grateful to never know what it feels like to have had a place where I felt like I belonged.
If I didn’t have anything to compare my current life with, would I be content?
“I’m not an angel,” my sister says, her voice cracking. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”
“We all have,” I respond automatically. “That’s the nature of the world we live in.”
But she shakes her head. She opens her mouth as if to say something and then closes it, staring out toward the City for a long while. I listen to the rhythm of our breathing, the wind off the river buffeting against the building.
“Catcher told me about what happened between you two on the roof,” she finally says.
“What?” I groan and bury my head in the quilts piled up around me. My entire body burns with a mortified heat. “Why?”
The bed shifts as my sister sits next to me again, her hand trailing through my hair. “He’s worried about you. He wanted me to make sure you’re okay.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, hoping to block all this out. “I’m fine.” My voice is muffled. I’d prefer it if the bed could just swallow me whole.
My sister takes a deep breath. “There’s something you need to know.” Her tone is so serious it sends chills down the back of my neck. Slowly, I raise my head and push myself up. Her face is drained of color, tense lines crinkling her forehead.
She stands and paces to the window and back again. “Catcher and I used to be together.”
My eyes narrow in confusion. It’s the accusation I’d thrown at Catcher on the roof but I hadn’t really believed it. I’d just been angry and wanted to hurt him the way he hurt me.
“B-before Elias,” she stammers. “Well, mostly before.” Words tumble from her lips and she keeps pacing in quick little circles as if her body can no longer contain the energy inside.
“We’d always known each other—he was my best friend’s brother—and I was fascinated by him and one night we kissed and then …” She swallows and I watch her throat tighten.
My own chest crushes with the weight of her confession. Jealousy builds up in my stomach at the thought of her and Catcher kissing. Of him running his fingers down her perfect face and how it must feel when he touches mine.
She stops moving, stares at me across the room. “And then he got infected and I did everything I could to be there for him. I disobeyed my mother’s orders, I broke the town rules, I risked my life—risked everything for him.”
What she says makes my heart pound slower, as if my blood’s become too thick for movement. I press the back of my hand over my mouth, feeling ill. “So what happened?” I dread the answer.
She’s staring out the window at the night and the reflection of her smooth skin appears warped and broken.
“He pushed me away,” she says simply, a small shrug with one shoulder. “I met Elias. He figured out Catcher’s immunity. I …” Her gaze deepens, lost someplace far away. “I got into trouble and we had to leave. We went back into the Forest and that was it.”
She swallows. “I fell in love with Elias and realized …” She looks over at me and her cheeks pinken as she shrugs.
“Realized what?” I ask her.
Her face burns an even deeper shade of red and she squirms a little. She takes a breath and holds it before finally saying, “That perhaps the feelings I’d had for Catcher weren’t that strong after all.”
I frown. “Why?”
“Because I was willing to let him push me away. I was willing to let him go and I know now that I’d never be able to let Elias go.” She hesitates and then adds in a firmer voice, “I’d fight for Elias in a way I was never really willing to do with Catcher.”
And I realize something at her words: I wasn’t willing to fight for Elias. Hadn’t ever been. I’d let him walk away from me and join the Recruiters and I never said anything to stop him.
I stare at the way my sister holds herself as she watches me think, her body rigid, face strained. And I realize that she’s actually afraid of me. Terrified she’ll lose Elias to me. That he and I share something that she never could.
She’s right, of course. He and I share a past of struggle and loss. We share the same guilt for leaving her in the Forest. We share the same memories and pain.
And we both share a love for my sister. Would Elias give her up for me if I asked? Could I ever ask it of him? Of her?
I think of Elias the night years ago that he made me feel beautiful. I think of the feel of his fingers along my skin. The words he whispered in my ear. I wonder if I could have said something to make him stay.
All these years I’ve wondered if I’d done something wrong. I’ve played that night over in my head a million times, willing it to end differently.
It’d never occurred to me that the years in between could change us so irrevocably. That I not only became a different person wh
en he was gone, but that I also don’t know who he is anymore.
And if I wasn’t willing to fight for him then, when I thought he meant everything to me, why would I ever fight for him now when he’s a stranger? When he loves my sister and she loves him?
“I’m not interested in Elias like that,” I tell her. “He loves you, and even if I did have some kind of say in the matter, I’m not sure I could ever care for him the way you do.”
Her whole body relaxes and tears glisten in her eyes. Her bottom lip trembles slightly. “Thank you,” she whispers.
Just having said the words makes me feel lighter, as if I’ve let go of some dark gray burden.
“What about Catcher?” she asks, coming to sit next to me, the bed groaning under our weight.
“What about him?”
“Are you going to fight for him?” She tilts her head as if sharing a secret, a glint of mischief in her eyes.
I think about the look on Catcher’s face when he told me I was beautiful. The horror and want and need. The agony. And then I remember what he said when we first met. “He told me he’s broken. I don’t know if he even wants me, or anyone else, for that matter.”
My sister slips her hand into mine. “The broken ones need someone to fight for them even harder,” she says, her thumb tracing over the scars on the back of my fingers.
“I don’t know,” I tell her, remembering how it felt when he pushed me away. I don’t want to risk feeling that hurt again.
My sister shrugs as she stands from the bed. “You’re the one who told me that we can’t live our lives in fear,” she says as she walks from the room. She pauses in the hallway. “By the way,” she adds, “if you were wondering, Catcher told us he’s heading to the City tonight. Said it would be a while before he made it back. He’s probably already down at the cable-car platform by now.”
It’s a few seconds before I can move but I finally jump from the bed and hurry to the window, staring down at the river. Little bonfires burn along the wall, Recruiters huddled around them as they rotate off shifts protecting the shore.