by A. J. Rosen
We quickly became inseparable, partners in crime, each as silly as the other, and we did everything together. It was hard to describe the connection we had because I didn’t fully understand it myself. It was as if we had always been friends even though it had only been a few weeks. He made me feel comfortable. I was myself around him, and he never judged me. Bryan was the only person I knew who understood what it was like to have a turbulent family life. I trusted him with everything.
Our friendship continued even after his mom finally awoke from her coma, returned home, and brought him home. Bryan would still sneak into my room when the rest of the neighborhood was asleep, and we’d talk for hours. He vented about what was going on at home, his parents’ divorce, and how his mother cried herself to sleep every night, haunted by the fact that she was able to hear his father’s thoughts about the other woman. Bryan cried as he poured his heart out. Together, we agreed that neither of us would ever experience the click—the invasion of privacy was too much. We had seen how it could all go wrong. If only his parents’ minds were not linked, perhaps his mother could have moved on.
Then one night, while sitting on our favorite swing in the nearby park during one of our usual conversations, he told me he had feelings for me. I was stunned. I’d come to think of him as a brother. I couldn’t say the one thing he wished to hear: that I felt the same way about him. The heart-wrenching look on his face, as if his whole world had crashed and burned, was one I would never forget—no matter how hard I tried.
The next day he texted me from our Hellenic school’s library, saying he needed to tell me something urgently. I told him to come over, dreading the awkward conversation that would ensue. As I waited for him to arrive, an uneasy feeling grew in my stomach. Something, maybe intuition, informed me that something terrible was about to happen. Still, I waited and waited.
He never showed up. Bryan died in a car accident. That was over a year ago now, but I still missed him every second of every day. I also couldn’t help feeling like it was my fault; if he hadn’t been on his way to see me, he would still be alive today. We would be working on our escape plan together—counting our combined savings and deciding whether New York was too expensive for our budget. We had already agreed that a big city was our only option if we wanted to avoid being found by our parents. We could live peacefully among the Nescient, blissfully click-free.
I couldn’t bear to look at the photo any longer so I put it back inside the shoe box, closed the lid, and pushed the box to the dark corner underneath the bed. I hated the idea of someone reading every passing thought I had inside my mind. I couldn’t go through what Bryan’s mom had. As cliché as it sounded, I wanted a normal life—free from all the sacred rituals and important celebrations. The fact that I’d also be free from all the Royals who always looked at me as if I was below them—as if I was less than them—was a generous bonus.
Without Bryan, though, I couldn’t escape on my own. The thought of being on the road alone terrified me, and I hadn’t saved up enough, anyway. It seemed like I was stuck going to Court after all.
My parents were busy preparing for my first Gathering. My mom insisted it’d help to take my mind off of Bryan’s death if I immersed myself in the rituals. While everyone with royal blood in their veins received an invitation, Regulars had to travel all the way to Court a year early to sign up and get their photographs taken in order to participate. My dad had made me go to Court with him so I could sign up. Getting my photo taken as I stood against the wall next to a water dispenser had been embarrassing enough—the photo looked like a mug shot—but the worst part of the whole ordeal was that I had to wait for hours outside the gate at the security office while my dad was inside finishing the necessary paperwork. Those who were not of royal blood and had not been to their first Gathering couldn’t enter the Court, which was why we had to have our parents come with us.
I’d spent the first hour alone. Then he was there with his hazel eyes and raven hair, exchanging some heated words with the guard at the security gate. He was undoubtedly the most handsome person I’d ever seen. His whole demeanor changed from frustrated to intrigued when he noticed me gawking, and he strolled confidently over.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Some bullshit about me not being able to get back into the Court grounds after leaving. I was only outside for a minute! I needed a little walk to get some air. But apparently I need to wait for verification to get back in.” He glared at the guard before softening his expression again. “But it looks like I’m in good company now. I’m Carlo.”
“Avery,” I said, my face flushing.
We had only used only our first names. I didn’t know his family name, and he didn’t know mine. We didn’t know each other’s Hellenicus status, and for the first time, it felt normal and refreshing to be Avery—not Avery Montgomery, the mere Regular.
I lost track of time as we sat outside the gate of the security office, chatting for hours. Carlo reminded me of Bryan in so many ways. He had a way of speaking to me, just as Bryan had, that made me feel safe, and the conversation flowed naturally between us. In the short time we spent together that day, we learned so much about each other.
“When you finally become a pilot, where will you fly your plane first?” Carlo asked.
“I don’t think I can choose where to go. I’ll have to go wherever they tell me to,” I said.
“Maybe. But it’s your dream, right?” Carlo grinned. “Maybe you could work for the Court? I heard they recently bought another jet. They will let you go for your first trip.”
There was no way I could handle having snobby Royals as my passengers. Since Carlo could be a Royal and might be offended by this sentiment, I didn’t say this out loud.
Perhaps my true feelings showed on my face, because after a short while, Carlo said, “Probably not a good idea.” It was almost as if he had read my mind. He leaned forward and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “There are a lot of vexing people around here—some might even call them assholes.” I couldn’t help laughing, and his eyes lit up, knowing he was the source of my amusement. “Anyway, it’s your dream, Avery—you can be and do whatever you want. You just have to have enough courage and willpower to pursue it.”
“What about you? What do you want to be?”
“I want to be a teacher.”
“What kind of teacher? Math? Biology? High school or college?”
“High school teacher, and yes, you guessed right, I want to teach math. I love math, and I want to break the perception that it’s a boring or tough subject.”
“Good luck with that. With the math mark on my report card, I won’t be changing my mind about that subject any time soon.”
“I’ll take that as a challenge,” he said. “Are you nervous about this whole thing? You’re preparing for your first Gathering, right?”
“Yeah.” It took a while for me to find my voice again, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. If Bryan were still here, I wouldn’t be going through any of this. My heart ached as the memories of Bryan came flooding back to me. I looked up, trying to keep my tears from spilling. A soft, warm hand cupped mine.
“You lost someone you love.”
It was more of a statement than a question, but I answered it nonetheless as I shook my head. “I lost someone who loved me. I didn’t have time to figure out my own feelings. But I think I lost my chance at happiness.”
“Do you think this person was the one?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged helplessly. “We aren’t supposed to know until we have a click, are we not?”
“Yes. We have to have a click to know for sure.” A look of disappointment flashed across his face. “This year will be my fourth Gathering, but I still haven’t met my other half. We just have to trust the Fates, I guess.”
The Fates. The mention of them got me frustrated in an instant.
“Don’t you get tired of waiting? You’ve wasted four years waiting for your soul mate.” He looked like he was about to interject in protest, but decided to simply clamp his mouth shut and listen. “What if you don’t meet your soul mate again this year? What if next year you don’t either? And the year after that?”
It was only when he squeezed his hand that I realized he was still holding mine. “Avery, I understand what you mean, and these four years haven’t exactly been filled with patience either,” Carlo said, shaking his head lightly. “Maybe for you it’s a waste of time, but for some people, for me anyway, it’s not. After all, we’re not waiting for a pizza delivery; we’re waiting for our literal other half, the other half of our soul. Whoever it might be, they will make it worth all the years I’ve spent waiting.”
“You can just as easily meet a nice person and have a shot at happiness.”
“Maybe,” Carlo said. “But they wouldn’t be my other half. Besides, what if one day I have a click? I would end up hurting two people, not just one.”
“You’re just going to wait?”
“Of course.”
“What if your soul mate never comes? What if you waste your whole life waiting for someone who never shows up?”
“Then I shall meet my soul mate in my next life.”
He noticed the disbelieving look on my face, “Look, I’m not trying to change your opinion—I believe each of us can have our own—but don’t feel sorry for me by thinking that I’m wasting my time because I don’t think of it that way.”
We were quiet for a moment before he cleared his throat. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“I’m just curious. You know if you don’t go through with your first Gathering you could live as a Nescient, and your gift will never be awakened, right?” I nodded. “Then why are you signing up for your first Gathering if you think that this is a waste of time?”
“Because I have no choice,” I answered matter of factly.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Avery.” Carlo’s kindness danced in those hazel eyes. “You always have a choice.”
My dad showed up moments later, but not before Carlo and I had exchanged phone numbers. After a few days, he texted, telling me he hadn’t met his other half. Even though I still wasn’t entirely sold on this soul-mates business, I couldn’t help feeling relieved that he hadn’t met his. With Carlo, I felt a spark of hope. I met him exactly when I needed to, and he offered me a new solution to my fears. There was this small, yet unwavering thought growing inside my head that maybe, if my soul mate turned out to be someone I knew—and actually liked—then maybe clicking with them wouldn’t be as horrible as I had thought.
Maybe the reason why I was still here instead of on a bus heading to New York or Seattle, anywhere but Denali, was because I had feelings for Carlo. Unlike me, he was one of the Hellenicus who thought that having a soul mate was a gift. And his trust in the process planted doubts in my mind that I couldn’t shake off. As if knowing that I was thinking about him, my phone buzzed. Carlo. I quickly unlocked my phone and pulled up his text. It started with his usual greeting,
Buonasera, cara mia.
That night, I decided that I wanted, more than anything, to know if Carlo was my soul mate or not. If by my birthday we did not have a click, at least I wouldn’t have to live the rest of my life haunted by what-ifs.
It was risky to have hope because hope led to expectation, which could also lead to disappointment. I’d heard about it often, how a Hellenicus went to their first Gathering certain that their significant other was their other half only to be heartbroken when they discovered their beloved was meant for someone else. And there was no guarantee that things would work out—look at Bryan’s parents; look at mine fighting all the time. I was also aware that if I went to the Gathering and my soul mate turned out to be somebody other than Carlo, my whole plan was ruined. But if I didn’t click with anyone, then I still had my savings. I could escape before next year’s Gathering, and my original plan to live in hiding among the Nescient would remain intact.
After spending most of the night mulling the pros and cons over in my mind, I woke up to the sun peeking through the slits in my blinds, my alarm ringing, and my mom’s voice shouting through my bedroom door telling me to get up. I had chosen to stay. I would go to my first Gathering. When it came to Carlo, I simply had to know.
Chapter Two
It was barely eight o’clock in the morning and I’d already lost my temper.
“Mom, I’ve told you, I’m done packing!” I hissed through gritted teeth. My mom slid the zipper around the suitcase, then dumped the contents onto my bed—every piece of clothing that I had spent hours ironing and putting neatly inside. “Why. Did. You. Do. That?”
Ignoring me, my mom tossed aside all of the old T-shirts I loved so much. She pulled out dresses and some faux-fur coats from the plastic bag she’d had with her when she had barged into my room and packed them in place of my choices.
“I’m not going to wear those.”
“You will,” she said as she turned on her heels and rummaged through my wardrobe. “You won’t have a choice when these are the only clothes you have with you.”
“If I am the one who has to wear them, don’t you think that I should be the one deciding what I wear?”
“Nope.”
This was too much. We had already fought during breakfast an hour ago, and I really did not want to have another argument now. I left, paying no mind to her yelling as I raced downstairs, took my coat off its hanger, and dashed out the front door.
My mom and I had never had a stable relationship, and without anything in common, it was even harder to build one. We were doomed to clash. Our personalities were too different: I was fire and she was water. If I was lucky, I could use my fire to evaporate her water. But if she held her ground, she would put out my fire with her water. It entirely depended on who was more stubborn at that moment. We could never reach an agreement because neither one of us was willing to compromise—maybe that was the one thing we had in common. We didn’t even agree on small things, like what we should have for dinner or who would take a bath first. Most of the time my dad had to come between us with a solution that we’d both accept.
Taking a left turn at the junction, I headed to Bryan’s swing and sat there for a few minutes before pulling out my phone to call my best friend, Kristen Ambrosia. Although Bryan had been my partner in crime, Kris was the one person I shared all my bottled-up feelings with. We had been best friends since her first day at my Hellenic school. She had walked toward me—the fat girl with ginger hair and freckles all over her nose—stopped by my desk, and asked to sit with me. She ignored everyone else who had tried to befriend her simply because she was a Pure Royal, and chose me, a Regular.
Other than glorifying soul mates, the Hellenicus were obsessed with status and how to promote themselves. I never understood it; it wasn’t like you could elevate your caste based on who you hung around with. Still, Royals tended to be even more status hungry than us Regulars, who had accepted our place. Besides our love for mystery novels and detective TV series, Kris and I had bonded over our shared dislike of the Hellenicus caste system and how it made some people so shallow.
After trying to phone her several times and having all my calls go straight to voice mail, I slid my phone into the front pocket of my jeans and decided to go to her house, which was only a few blocks away, in a fancy gated community.
The house looked like a cutout from an architecture magazine, looming proudly behind creaky iron gates and flanked by rows of skeletal trees swaying gently in the December wind. At its threshold stood a delicate marble fountain. On summer days the soft gurgling of the clear water resonated melodically in the surrounding silence, but now that it was winter the water had frozen, and all that could be heard were my footsteps crunching on the snow of the front walkway.
I was about to ring the bell at the grand entrance to the Ambrosia house when someone turned the lock. I hoped it was Leopold, the gardener’s handsome son, who might answer the door again. Last time I hadn’t been prepared and had parsley from my salad stuck between my teeth. Leopold had awkwardly pointed it out. Zeus, it was embarrassing. But I had learned my lesson and ran my tongue along the front of my teeth to make sure nothing was stuck in there. When the door swung open, I had my most dazzling smile on . . . only to have it dissolve immediately.
The gods loved to torture me—always throwing obstacles in my way. This time it was in the form of a six-foot-tall guy with tousled brown hair and mesmerizing green eyes who was looking down at me from his lofty height. Vladimir Ambrosia, Kris’s older brother. I tried to stand up a little taller, stretching my five-foot-two frame and refusing to show deference to a Pure Royal, despite having spent my whole life being trained to.
The last time we had been in the same place was two years ago during Hermaea—a festival with an athletic contest held in honor of Hermes. Vladimir had come to support Kris, who played tennis. I had been cheering on my best friend, minding my own business, and doing my best to ignore him. But before the match was over, we had managed to bicker. As usual, he had started it.