by HollyBodger
her head and says, “You want to pick a tanned boy? End up like your didi?”
Her words are like a slap across the face—something I’ve only felt once from Nani. She says, “Tell her, Surina,” as she motions to the front of the carriage where Banevi is seated with the coachman. “Tell her what it’s like to be married to a market boy. One who’s missing half his teeth, who can barely hold a fork. Whose family begs you to take food off your table to put it on theirs.”
I open my mouth to deliver the same lie I give whenever someone asks me if I’m happy, but I cannot do it this time. I cannot pretend I love Banevi, that he is my prince. He is no more a prince than the horse that pulls our carriage.
I stare at my charmless bracelet instead, hoping Nani will stop. She doesn’t.
“See?” she practically spits. “I told her to choose wisely, now she’s the one without a baby girl in her arms.”
I stare at my lap, hoping she will leave me be now that’s she dealt her lowest blow. I’ve already suffered enough, haven’t I? My father doesn’t know I exist. My mother acts as though she wished I didn’t. The only person who loved me—who I loved in return—is gone. I’ve had to spend two and a half years pretending to be happily married to a boy who disgusts me instead. What else can there be?
“Tell her,” Nani screams at me in a way that tells me there is more to come—there always will be if I want to match her suffering. “Tell her how you made that rich boy, that boy from our floor—the one with the four sisters—lose in the final Test. It was your choice and you picked chess, a game of war, when I told you to choose cards, a game of luxury.”
I open my mouth, but have no words to speak. She’s right. She told me to pick cards. Shahid would have won at cards. Like most boys with sisters, he played them every time his family gathered with another. But that was precisely why choosing them would not have been fair—not as far as Mummy was concerned. She wanted me to choose something that did not give him—or Banevi, the only other contestant left—an advantage.
Nani goes on. “Tell her how you’d promised him an easy win. How he protested a little too hard when he didn’t get it. How he was sent to the Wall and jumped off Agnimar cliff instead.”
My desire to speak dissolves with the tears on my cheek. How can I possibly explain what happened to Sudasa? How can I tell her that I’d gone home after the first day of my Tests and had told Shahid that our future was certain? He was in first place already and we knew he’d do well at the physical Tests. With the right choices from me in Tests four and five, his win was guaranteed. We would be husband and wife before the month’s end.
How can I tell her that I’d invited him to sneak into my bedroom that night? That we did things that were meant only for married couples. That we both believed we would be one soon.
How can I tell her that it wasn’t until the middle of the second day that Mummy had made me swear I would not cheat? I would act like the perfect model I was meant to be when I was chosen for Koyanagar’s posters. Most of all, I would not turn into Nani.
How can I tell her why Shahid acted the way he did when I awarded Banevi the final five rocks? How can I tell her how I’d begged Nani not to punish Shahid for his protest, how I’d begged her to let his family buy him a good position instead?
Even if I could tell her those things, how could I possibly tell her that Nani found out I was pregnant a few weeks after my wedding? She’d taken me to see a female doctor hoping we were in for good news, only to find out it was the exact opposite. I’d barely been married a month and was already almost three months along. Worse, I was carrying a boy. A little Shahid who would never see the light of day. That was the day she slapped me across the face for real. At the time, I thought it was the worst thing she could do to me. I was wrong.
So wrong.
How can I tell Sudasa that it was my fault Shahid jumped off Agnimar cliff a few days later? I may not have been the one who sent him a letter telling him what I’d done to our son, but what did it matter if it was me or the doctor or Nani? It was still my responsibility. I killed him: the boy I loved with all my heart.
I suppose, I killed my heart that day too. I turned myself cold. Angry. Unfeeling. I became the model Nani had always wanted.
The one who was just like her.
About 5 TO 1
Part Homeless Bird and part Matched, this is a dark look at the near future told through the alternating perspectives of two teens who dare to challenge the system.
In the year 2054, after decades of gender selection, India now has a ratio of five boys for every girl, making women an incredibly valuable commodity. Tired of marrying off their daughters to the highest bidder and determined to finally make marriage fair, the women who form the country of Koyanagar have instituted a series of tests so that every boy has the chance to win a wife.
Sudasa, though, doesn’t want to be a wife, and Contestant Five, a boy forced to compete in the test to become her husband, has other plans as well. As the tests advance, Sudasa and Contestant Five thwart each other at every turn until they slowly realize that they just might want the same thing.
This beautiful, unique novel is told from alternating points of view—Sudasa’s in verse and Contestant Five’s in prose—allowing readers to experience both characters’ pain and their brave struggle for hope.ABOUT 5 TO 1
Part Homeless Bird and part Matched, this is a dark look at the near future told through the alternating perspectives of two teens who dare to challenge the system.
In the year 2054, after decades of gender selection, India now has a ratio of five boys for every girl, making women an incredibly valuable commodity. Tired of marrying off their daughters to the highest bidder and determined to finally make marriage fair, the women who form the country of Koyanagar have instituted a series of tests so that every boy has the chance to win a wife.
Sudasa, though, doesn’t want to be a wife, and Kiran, a boy forced to compete in the test to become her husband, has other plans as well. As the tests advance, Sudasa and Kiran thwart each other at every turn until they slowly realize that they just might want the same thing.
This beautiful, unique novel is told from alternating points of view—Sudasa’s in verse and Kiran’s in prose—allowing readers to experience both characters’ pain and their brave struggle for hope.
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