In Real Life

by Elisabeth Warner

  You mean, when you tried to kill them both? “Oh, it was nothing.”

  “In that case, I’d like to offer you a job.”

  My ears perk up, and I fight with all my strength not to look at Susan. “A job?”

  “Yeah. How much medical experience do you have?”

  Medical experience? “Well, I took care of my dying relative after his medical chip stopped working, and I helped Tee. That’s it.”

  “Wait, you’ve never delivered a baby before? This was your first time?”

  I nod slowly. “Yeah, that’s right. I’ve barely met someone who was pregnant before.”

  “How did you know about healthy vitals and when it was safe to deliver a baby?” He plays with his fingers as he inches closer to me like he wants to pick my brain and discover my secrets.

  I take a step back and avert my eyes to the ground. “I’ve done a lot of research online over the years.”

  He purses his lips and bends his head toward the floor. “Well, that research has paid off. Plus, your sympathy and care will help everyone here in the Community.”

  I fold my arms over my chest.

  “I agree,” Susan steps in. “Lin’s heart is definitely in the right place.”

  “And since you don’t have much medical experience, we’ll train you. You’ll learn everything that Blair knows and more.”

  “What will I be doing around the clinic?”

  He leans against the wall, straightening his shirt and leaving one hand over his stomach. “You’d be my assistant.”

  I chuckle. “Well, Spark, please forgive me. I’ve never been to a doctor’s office. So I need you to explain my job to me. Will I be giving out medicine? Wiping up blood?”

  He holds up his hand. “You’re going to help people who are sick.”

  I’m going to do more than that.

  Thoughts race of images of Ben resting peacefully in my arms. Dad, covered in blood, choking on the air that’s supposed to keep him alive. There are more people here who may need help.

  I’m not just getting evidence that Spark’s a traitor. I’m helping the Community.

  Spark clears his throat, interrupting my thoughts. “So, Lin, what do you say?”

  Besides, this is my chance to keep a close eye on Spark. To catch him in the act. To stop him if I need to do so, whatever the costs.

  I think I might have found my purpose in the Community.

  I nod. “I’m in.”

  “Excellent. You can start next week. Blair and I need to prepare ourselves for training.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea,” Susan says,

  Spark tosses a grin in my direction as he walks back to the clinic.

  I turn around and find Nelle with her mouth hanging open. “You okay?” I ask.

  “This is perfect,” she exhales. “Now you can keep a close eye on him.”

  But an uneasiness churns through my stomach. Why was Spark so quick to offer me a job when I have no medical experience?

  He might have a plan that I haven’t figured out yet.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The six days after my conversation with Spark go by in an instant. We spend most of our time taking care of Tee as she recovers from her c-section. She still has a few weeks to go, but she’s doing a lot better. Besides being there for my friend, I’m excited to get some medical experience before I officially start at the clinic.

  I wish I could start working sooner. Trying to figure out Spark’s motive and come up with my own plan of attack has given me a daily dose of anxiety.

  At breakfast the day before I begin, Nelle leans toward me, her long hair brushing against my shoulder. “Lin, to celebrate your new job, I think it’s time we take you in the water.”

  “Yeah, now’s the perfect time to go,” June agrees. “This is probably the last warm day we’ll have this year.”

  My muscles clench as I think about my walk around the mountain, the place where I almost died. “I-I can’t swim.”

  “That’s the point,” Ace says as he walks by with a plate of dishes in his hands. “We’re going to teach you.”

  I feel my face getting warm. “You all know how to swim?”

  “Yeah,” Nelle says. “We used to spend our summers visiting our friends’ pools.”

  I blink twice. “Pools?”

  “Oh, right. Lin is from the elite part of the country.” Ace chuckles, and the others join. “Maybe you swam in VR?”

  “I never had time to swim,” I say through gritted teeth, wishing that the attention was off me. “As a matter of fact, I don’t even have the right clothes.”

  “You mean a bathing suit? I have one that could fit you.” June reaches into her backpack and pulls out a bright orange piece of clothing that looks like a bra and underwear put together.

  “I’m not wearing that.” Shaking my head, I fold my arms and walk the other way.

  Nelle gently pulls at my arm. “Lin, come on! We’re all doing it. Come give it a try.”

  I glance toward the door where the sunlight is peering through the window, eager for another chance to explore nature. I need to relax before I start my job at the clinic, but is throwing myself into a lake with a bunch of people I only met a few weeks ago going to help me do that?

  Before I can object, June escorts me to her cabin while the others go to bring Tee some breakfast. June’s cabin is just as small as Tee’s. I change into the suit and look down. The curves of fat on my body, even the ones I didn’t know about, are now on display for everyone to see. Including Ace.

  “June, I don’t think this is a good idea,” I mutter, hugging my body and averting my eyes toward the wall.

  “Just think. It’s getting colder out, so we won’t be able to do this as often. You may not get a chance to swim until next year.”

  “That sounds good to me. I can wait until next year.”

  “No, well, give it a shot now. If you don’t like it, you’ll never have to do it again.”

  I shrug. “Fine.”

  Now that June and I are alone for a moment, I can finally ask her about her “hacker.” “Hey, June. Would you mind telling me a little bit about the IT guy who helped your grandma with her TV?”

  She grins. “He was from Brooklyn. Told us all about his wife. She seemed like a very nice lady. Guarded, but very much loved by him.”

  I shake my head. “No way. It can’t be—”

  “I’m sorry to say, but I can’t believe what he did to you.”

  I sit up, feeling empowered. “Yeah, I know, right? What did I do to deserve—”

  “No.” June holds her hand up. “I don’t believe what he did to you. As in, I don’t think it happened.”

  I scrunch my eyebrows. “You don’t believe me? You think you know more about my husband because of the short conversation you had with him at your grandma’s house?”

  June’s face turns bright red. “He did more than just help my grandma’s TV. She had a terminal illness, and he would check up on me until she passed. I know it sounds crazy, but I want to find out if what he told me lines up with your story.”

  I sure hope so. I take a deep breath and recount the memory. “It was time for pizza, but he wasn’t home yet. Tobi told me that he was at my best friend’s house. He cheated on me with my best friend.”

  “Well, I hate to tell you that you’re wrong, but I don’t think he cheated on you.”

  My hands clench into fists. “Excuse me?”

  “Hear me out, Lin. She was your best friend, right?”

  Suddenly I feel like I’m back on the Internet. Friends and family alike are posting their opinions about my perfect husband, making me the problem. Making it sound like I deserved what happened to me. June says that she’s on my side. But now she’s accusing me of lying?

  “Lin, answer my question, please.”

  I slam my fist and rise to my feet, my bloated belly jiggling. “Why do I have to? You wouldn’t understand why I was upset. You’re the one who’s irrelevant.”r />
  My comment makes June sink into herself. Now that she’s quiet, I feel a surge of power running through my veins. “Yeah, June. You don’t know what it’s like to be attacked on social media by all your friends. You don’t know what it’s like to text your husband and not get a response. I was worried. I was ashamed. Honestly, I wish I had your life. I wish I was irrelevant.”

  June wipes her eyes and sits up. “If you were irrelevant, your friend and husband wouldn’t have been able to save you.”

  “Yeah, but if I was irrelevant, this wouldn’t have—wait. You think they saved me? Like, Sage was in on it too?”

  “Lin, the Internet shutdown wasn’t an accident. Don told me that people saw it coming for years. Didn’t you say that your best friend’s husband was a government official? He probably knew this would happen, that they would be arresting people who were against the Liberty party.”

  Her explanation soothes my aching heart. There’s a possibility I was wrong. More than anything, I want to believe that Don didn’t cheat on me. But how can I ignore the facts? “So, you think that he was over there talking to her about it?”

  “Exactly. I think she was telling him what to do in case he needed to hack into your personal page and delete your archive. She was preparing him to protect you just in case he needed to do so.”

  “Okay, but ironically I only needed my archive deleted because I threatened to kill Sage on my personal page.”

  “You don’t know that. You only know it’s the biggest crime you’ve ever committed. In a couple months, you could’ve committed a smaller crime that would’ve put you in jail.”

  I bite my lip. June has a point. Don knew that I’d be upset and threaten to kill him over the Internet. He needed to get me off my phone so he could hack my social media page. Once the Internet was down, I was gone. My slate was wiped clean.

  “Okay, so you’re telling me that he probably just met with her to make sure I would be safe. Let’s pretend that’s true for a second. In that case, why didn’t he tell me that?”

  “He wouldn’t tell you. He needed to talk to your best friend, a government official’s wife, because he knew that their house wasn’t bugged like yours was.”

  “Bugged?”

  “Yeah, your house was bugged. The government has been listening to our phones and house devices for years. Collecting data, giving us ads, suggesting places to go. But if they’d heard him talking about the Internet shutdown, they would’ve arrested you on the spot. Especially if he was explaining how to delete your archive in case you committed a crime.”

  I fold my arms over my chest. “Did Don send you here to tell all this to me?”

  “No. He sent me here to protect me. But he said tat if you didn’t believe me when I said he was innocent, I should tell you that he feels horrible about July 13, 2096.”

  The date of my miscarriage. My eyes well up with tears. “There’s no way you would’ve known that…”

  I hate to admit it, but Don really thought of everything. But he wouldn’t have known about it without Sage’s help. She had to invite him over at a time I wouldn’t be with him, during his work shift.

  My thoughts race as I consider all the people who were arrested in my neighborhood. “He could’ve deleted anyone’s archive! Why did he pick me?” My voice cracks. I think of Mom, who has a much bigger heart than I do. If he rescued her, she wouldn’t be in jail now. I can only imagine what they’re doing to her.

  June grabs my hand, leading me along the path. “Maybe he protected you so that you could help rescue others. Based on our conversation, he sounds like he has great confidence in you.”

  I shake my head. “This is all too unreal. I guess it makes sense that they met at night. Her husband worked late hours at the office. Do you think her husband would have suspected anything?”

  “Well, Lin, from what you told me, you divorced your husband. You made his job of being your hacker a lot easier. No one would assume that your ex-husband would risk his life to try to save yours. It would’ve been hard to explain away his plan if you were married and he works in IT.”

  “Which brings me to my next question. What did he tell you?”

  June chuckles as she shifts her weight. “We called him to fix our TV. It was the only thing in the house hooked to a wireless connection. When he found out I didn’t use the Internet much, he realized that we were off the grid. That meant the government wasn’t tracking our house like they were in smart houses like yours. He warned me about the shutdown, not because I’d lose Internet, but because the patrol officers would be after us because we wouldn’t show up in their system. Plus, we wouldn’t get ration boxes.

  “He told me about this place, and about a woman who was coming here. He was willing to risk everything for you. He told me to wait for you because he knew we would be great friends.”

  “And are we great friends?”

  “Well, we have the rest of our lives to get to know each other. And it starts with going in that lake.”

  As if on cue, someone knocks on the door. “I guess the others are here,” June says, walking toward the door.

  “No! I don’t want anyone to see me like this,” I whimper.

  “Here. Take this towel and wrap it over you.” She tosses me a blue towel that I wear over my body like a dress.

  Before she opens the door, I take her hand. “So...this was all according to plan?” Acid rises to my throat. “Oh no. I’m going to be sick. This is too much for me to handle.” I’m happy that my bitterness is gone, but I’m angry that it had to be there in the first place. This all could’ve been avoided if someone had explained to me what was going on.

  June squeezes my hand. “Breathe. This is a good thing. Your husband really loves you. Even enough to separate himself from you to protect you.”

  “Yeah, I got all that, June. I totally understand it. But knowing that doesn’t help.”

  “I would be ecstatic if I was worth that to someone.”

  “Yeah, but you wouldn’t have had to live without your husband for three years.” Tobi was a better companion than my own husband was, but it would’ve been nice to have Don around.

  “I wish I could understand how you feel.”

  “Are you okay in there?” Nelle asks from the other side of the door.

  June opens the door and Nelle gasps. “Lin! Are you actually coming in the water?”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh, do I have an option? In that case, no.”

  “Come on, Lin! It’ll be fun.”

  I walk out of June’s cabin and lock eyes with Ace. Immediately I tug at the towel and hold my arms tightly against my chest. He can’t see me like this.

  But he smiles at me and keeps walking toward the brook. The one where he saved me.

  I can’t do this.

  As we walk the same path I walked a few days ago, my legs grow heavy. The blazing sun is shining bright on this unusually warm autumn day. I got all the questions answered that I needed. But even those answers produce more questions in my heart.

  Can my new friends use all this information against me, now that June knows the name of my hacker?

  Is there a way for me to save my mom?

  But the most important question is: Will I ever see Don again?

  Chapter Fifty

  June takes me to a small cliff overlooking the brook, while the others slip into the water.

  “Do you trust me?” she asks.

  No. “What are you—?”

  Grabbing my hand, she walks to the edge of the cliff. “On the count of three, follow my lead.”

  Peering down, I know what she’s going to do. I don’t like it.

  “One.” She spreads her legs a few inches apart as mine stiffen.

  “Two.” She bends her legs and I want to run.

  “Three!” Before I can grasp what’s going on, she leaps into the air while holding my hand. I let out a sharp cry as, in slow motion, I lose my footing and follow her headfirst into the water.

  �
�June, no! Why did you—”

  She lets go as I plunge into the cool water. It shocks my limbs and propels me forward. I swish the water around me, grabbing for something solid. My feet kick underwater plants and a slimy thing slides past my stomach.

  “June! Help!” I choke, struggling to breathe. I stop flailing my arms when Ace grabs me.

  “You’re okay, Lin. Relax. Kick your legs.”

  I can’t think of anything but getting out of the water.

  “Kick your legs,” Ace says patiently. “You were doing it before.”

  “I want to get out,” I say. “I gave it a try.”

  “You haven’t even started yet.” Nelle glides in front of me, stroking her arms in the water like a boat. “Do what Ace says. Start kicking.”

  I close my eyes and try to will my frozen body to move. My legs start shaking, both from the cold and from nerves. That’s a start. “A sea creature!” I scream when a scaly animal touches my toe.

  “Lin, that’s a fish.”

  “Oh. Right. Thanks, Ace.” I swish the water around me with my feet, focusing on getting the motion down. When I look over at Ace, he’s barely holding me.

  “You’re doing all that on your own,” he says. “Now, add your arms.” He lets go and I start flailing my arms again. “More graceful.”

  “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “Like this.” June glides past me in the same way Nelle did. “Control your movement instead of letting the movement control you.”

  “I like that, June. Very poetic.” With gritted teeth, I let myself float on the water and start gliding. “Wow. Look, I’m doing it!” I flop in the water until I make it to the other side of the lake, my friends cheering. I grab the ground on the shore like it’s my lifeline.

  “Lin, you did it,” June says, patting me on the back. “What do you think?”

  My mouth curves into a sly grin. “I think I want to jump again.”

  This time, Nelle takes me up the hill. She grabs my hand and shows me how to jump. “Bend your legs, like this. Then, spring up toward the water and land on anything but your head or stomach.”

  I follow her lead, letting her jump first. With my friends cheering me into the water, I bend my legs like a compressed spring and kick off the edge, into the air, and land in the lake. This time, I can kick and stroke until I feel in control.