by Zoe Cannon
If anything, that only seemed to make Heather more jittery. Her gaze jerked from the windows to the door to a shadow in the corner.
Irrational anger surged through Becca again. What right did Heather have to be afraid? She hadn’t done anything but hear something she didn’t like and run off. “You wanted to talk, right? So let’s go talk.”
Heather followed Becca to the bedroom. She positioned herself too carefully on the edge of the bed, while Becca sat cross-legged next to her. She looked at the floor, over at the window, anywhere but at Becca.
Becca broke the silence. “Thanks for talking to Milo for me.” Even if it hadn’t worked out the way she had wanted, Heather had kept her word.
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but after the way you ran out of the car last week, I thought maybe… I was waiting for…” There was no good way to say I thought you were going to turn me in.
“I just needed some time to think, that’s all.” Heather still wouldn’t look at her.
“It’s not like you didn’t know I was a dissident before. You’ve known for a year and a half.”
“It’s different, though.” Finally, Heather met her eyes. “There’s a difference between being a dissident and… I never thought you were… I didn’t know it was that real.” She hugged herself. “You’re… you’re what we learned about in school. What the posters warn us about. You’re not just questioning the government, you’re working against it. From inside Internal, even—and no one suspects. It’s like… everything they ever told us is true.”
Becca let her head fall forward into her hands. Of all the things she might have wanted to make Heather believe, that ranked only slightly higher on the list than “torturing and executing dissidents is really for their own good.” She tried humor. “Not everything,” she said from behind her hands. “I never could get the hang of eating babies. They taste all stringy.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
“Why…” Heather hesitated. “Why are you working with the dissidents? What are you trying to do? Do you even have a reason?” She lowered her voice. “I keep wondering that about my parents. Why they did it. They were everything we always heard about, but at the same time, they… they couldn’t have been. I can’t imagine them ever wanting to hurt anyone. And I don’t think you would either.”
“None of us do.” Becca pushed down her anger and spoke as gently as she could manage. “It’s not like that. We don’t want to destroy society like Internal says. We don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Then why? What’s the point of all this? I know after… after my parents… I didn’t want to hear about it. But now I do.” She looked at Becca with pleading eyes. “I need to know.”
“Because…” How could she put it into words? How could she make Heather understand? “Because this is all wrong. Everything Internal does—the torture, the executions, the false confessions… They’re killing innocent people, Heather. Every day. And nobody cares.” Her voice grew more animated as she spoke, her anger forgotten in the rush of words she had kept bottled up for a year and a half. “We only see what they want us to see. We only think what they want us to think. There are whole books that criticize the regime, did you know that? But people don’t even know they exist. And if they did, they’d call them nothing but dissident lies—they’d have to, because Internal kills anyone who says anything different.
“Everyone reads from the scripts they give us, and most people don’t even know they’re doing it. All the suspicion against children of dissidents lately—Internal is making it happen. They want everyone to hate people like you, so when they announce that they’re locking you all up to brainwash you into good citizens, everyone will smile and nod and talk about how well Internal protects us.”
Heather’s head jerked up. “What are you—”
“Reeducation. That’s what they’re calling it. They’re going to take all the kids with dissident parents and torture them until they prove they’re reformed. And no one will argue. No one will say it’s wrong, just like no one thinks what my mom does is wrong.” Her hands curled around the bedspread. “I’m going to stop it. I have to stop it, because nobody else will.”
Heather sat where she was for a long time, staring down at her lap, quivering from the silent war inside her. Finally she spoke. “It’s going to get you killed. Like it did for my parents.”
Becca nodded. “Yeah,” she answered quietly. “It will.”
“How can you be so calm about that?” Becca didn’t know whether the look on Heather’s face was awe or pity.
“I thought about it a lot, back when I first joined the resistance. And I realized I had two choices. I could fight, and accept that fighting would kill me in the end… or I could walk away.” She paused, remembering. It all felt like so long ago. Back when this had all been new, back before she had gotten used to living a temporary life. “And I couldn’t walk away.”
She willed Heather to understand, willed her words to cross the gap between them. But Heather just shook her head.
“Would it really be so bad if you did?” she asked, her voice as quiet as Becca’s. “If nobody fought, if nobody criticized the regime, none of this would happen. There would be no executions, no… no reeducation. None of it. You wouldn’t have to die. My… my parents would still be…” She swallowed her tears with a shudder. “And what’s the point of rebelling in the first place? What they’re giving us isn’t so bad, is it? We have food, friends, a place to live. A chance to be happy.”
“As long as you never question what they tell you.” There was something different about her voice. Some resonating note she hadn’t heard in herself before. Something familiar that she couldn’t quite place. “As long as you never allow yourself a word or a thought that hasn’t been approved by Internal. As long as you ignore what they do to the ones who want more than that.”
“And you can’t do that.” The look on Heather’s face was familiar, too. The yearning in her eyes. Becca felt that same yearning whenever she listened to Micah talk about Internal.
That was what she had heard in herself. She had sounded like Micah.
“No,” she answered. “I can’t.”
“And my parents couldn’t do that.”
“No.”
But the yearning wasn’t the only thing Becca recognized. There was a sense of resignation there, too. As much as Becca wished she could see what Micah saw, feel what he felt, she knew she couldn’t—and she could see that same feeling in Heather now.
Heather ducked her head like she was ashamed. “Maybe I shouldn’t be able to do it either. Maybe… maybe I’m betraying my parents by not fighting for what they believed in. I don’t know.” Her tear-laden eyes met Becca’s almost accusingly. “But I don’t see how it’s worth all this to… to be able to read a few books. To complain about the people who are keeping this country going. It’s not as simple for me as it is for you.”
“It’s not simple for me, either.” But maybe it was, in a way. She knew what mattered to her. What she was willing to die for. Heather didn’t have that.
“I wish I could do what you do,” said Heather. “Believe what you believe. Then at least I would know my parents died for something that mattered. But I don’t, and…” She lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug as the tears began to fall. “And they’re just dead. They’re dead, and Internal killed them, and I don’t know how to live with that. I don’t know how to make it okay. Maybe it never will be.” She swiped a hand across her eyes.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t—” Couldn’t help you like I should have. Like I always used to. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.” Becca reached for her hand, expecting Heather to pull away.
But Heather grabbed Becca’s hand in both of hers and squeezed so hard the bones ached. “You did a lot, though. You helped. I had to know whether I was a dissident… and now I know I’m not. I’m not like you. Maybe it would be easier if I was, but at least I know for sure.”
But this was Heather’s decision. And Heather had made her choice.
“There’s a place for you in the resistance, if you ever want it,” was all she said. “We could work together.” Everything could be the way it was before. Heather dancing circles through the room with every victory and crying for everyone they failed to save. Becca holding them together, keeping them safe, making the plans. They might not know what they were doing, they might feel lost and frustrated and hopeless, but they wouldn’t be alone. They would never be alone.
Only that wouldn’t, couldn’t, happen. No matter how much Becca missed what they used to have, they could never get it back. Becca’s old best friend was gone. She didn’t know this new Heather, and Heather didn’t know her.
“Thank you,” said Heather. She squeezed Becca’s hand again. “But it’s not what I want.”
Their old friendship was gone. But Becca had helped her. Given her what she needed, in some roundabout way.
Maybe that could be enough.
* * *
Becca didn’t sleep.
She tossed and turned, chasing dreams that didn’t come, thinking about Heather, thinking about tomorrow and what it would bring. She writhed in semi-consciousness until an hour before dawn, when she padded out of bed to do something she should have done long before now.
The roads were empty at this time of morning. It didn’t take her long at all to get to her mom’s apartment. Still bleary from half-sleep, she got out of the car and walked into the building, breathing in the unfamiliar scent of the early-morning air. She felt like the only person awake in the universe.
Outside, there was no van waiting to transport her mom to 117; there were no Enforcers inside the building biding their time. Nothing that would have told her, if she hadn’t already known, that anything was wrong.
Not until she saw the guard in front of her mom’s door.
She almost turned around right then. Instead she stopped in front of the door and tried to pretend she didn’t notice the guard’s narrowed eyes or the way his hand drifted toward his weapon. “I’m here to see my mother.”
“You’re her daughter?” He lowered his hand. Sympathy flickered in his eyes. But he shook his head. “No one goes in or out. I’m sorry.”
No. She couldn’t have lost her chance. She couldn’t be too late. “I won’t be long. I just want to talk to her.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, with what sounded like real regret.
“Please. I just want… I want to see her before…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
He hesitated. Looked from her to the door and back again. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll make a call. See if I can get you special permission.”
She forced a grateful smile. “Thank you.”
She waited while he dialed the phone and spoke in low tones to whoever was on the other end. At last he hung up and turned back to her. “Five minutes. No more.”
“Thank you,” she said again, and this time the gratitude wasn’t forced. She reached into her pocket for her key, but he held up a hand to stop her. With a key of his own, he unlocked the door and pushed it slightly open for her.
“Don’t be too long,” he reminded her.
She nodded and stepped inside.
A stillness hung over the room, as if her mom were already gone. The coffee table, usually piled with at least a few pieces of mail and a book or two, gleamed as though it had been scrubbed. Even the bookshelves looked freshly dusted. Her mom, dressed for work with not a single hair coming loose from her tight braid, sat on the couch, staring out the window with empty eyes. She held herself too still as Becca came up behind her.
Becca eased herself to the couch beside her. “Mom? I’m… I’m here.”
“Becca.” Her mom sounded a thousand years old.
“Why is there a guard outside the door?” She couldn’t ask the real question. Do you know? Do you know what I did?
Her mom’s face was tight, strained with the effort of appearing normal. She looked brittle, like any wrong move, any wrong word, could shatter her. “They have new evidence against me.” There was no accusation in her voice. None of that tone she knew from her childhood, the one that said We both know what you did, so you might as well admit it now. “They’re not arresting me yet, but…” The rest of the sentence hung unspoken in the air.
“Do you…” Becca swallowed. “Do you know what the evidence is?” Or who gave it to them?
“They didn’t tell me. They’re not telling me anything anymore.” If her mom knew the truth, Becca could see no sign of it. And if she knew, wouldn’t she have said something? Wouldn’t she have turned on Becca, sobbing and devastated or cold and accusing, and demanded to know why?
Guilt dripped off Becca; she was drenched in it. She reeked with the stink of it. How could her mom not smell it on her? Her mom, who could see through the lies of any dissident. Anyone but her.
Willful ignorance again.
Her mom loved Becca too much to believe she could do a thing like this. So she would die never knowing who had sent her to her death.
Becca nearly gagged on the taste of her own shame.
“So they’re just keeping you locked up in here?” she asked.
“For now,” her mom answered. “I imagine they’re going to keep me here until they take me to 117.” Her voice cracked a little, the only break in her too-calm demeanor. Becca had to stop herself from cringing away from her, away from this wrongness.
Hearing her mom say it made this whole thing real in a way that even her conversation with Milo hadn’t. Her breath caught in her throat. “There has to be something you can do.” Her hands clenched; her fingernails dug into the fleshy part of her palms.
Slowly, she made herself relax. Little half-moon marks remained where her nails had bitten into her skin.
She had to keep her mask up, even here. Especially here.
“Becca… there’s something I want you to know.” She placed a hand on Becca’s knee. “I’m not a dissident, Becca. Whatever they say, I didn’t do any of this. I’ve never been anything less than loyal to the regime. Don’t let yourself doubt that.”
“I know. I know you could never betray Internal.” There was only one traitor here.
“But there’s another thing.” Her mom paused. “After my execution, questioning my guilt will be considered dissident activity.” Her hand tightened. “I have to know you’re safe, Becca. You need to say whatever is necessary to keep yourself safe.”
“I will,” Becca promised. She knew how to say what was necessary. Otherwise she wouldn’t have given Milo what he wanted, and they wouldn’t be having this conversation.
They wouldn’t be saying goodbye.
The door opened.
“I’m sorry,” said the guard from the doorway. “Your five minutes are up. It’s time for you to leave.”
Becca wrapped her arms around her mom, breathing in her familiar scent. She squeezed tightly, then loosened her hold, suddenly afraid she would break her mom in two.
“They’re not really going to do this,” she said into her mom’s shoulder. “They’ll realize it was all a mistake.” The lies fell smoothly from her lips. But she knew her mom would see them for what they were. Her mom knew as well as she did that this story always ended the same way.
“I love you, Becca,” her mom said quietly.
“I love you too.” Her voice didn’t break. She wished it had.
She let go.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure whether her mom could hear.
She left without looking back.
* * *
Micah looked from Becca to his car to the small duffel bag in front of him. His gaze traveled back to Becca as if magnetized. “So. I guess… I g
uess this is it.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to see the regret in his eyes as they said goodbye, didn’t want to see the trust as she sent him to his death. But she couldn’t look away. Couldn’t stop memorizing every detail of his face to torture herself with in the inevitable sleepless nights to come.
At least I won’t have to think about it for long. Not if her odds of making it out of the reeducation center alive were what she thought they were.
“You were right, though. It was worth it.” His smile was tinged with sadness. The soft bittersweet kind of sadness that someone could afford to feel if they hadn’t just sentenced their mother to death, if they weren’t about to do the same to somebody else. She couldn’t do this right now. Her head was still full of her mother’s goodbye; her eyes were still heavy with tears she couldn’t shed.
“I’ll miss you.” It was the only true thing she could say.
Micah reached for her hand. For a moment he just looked at her, neither of them speaking, and she could feel his gaze reaching all the way down into her soul, all the way to her secrets and her shame. Any minute now, he would know her for who she was. Liar. Traitor.
She broke their gaze. Took a step back. Disentangled her hand from his to gesture toward the single small duffel bag lying by his feet. “Is that all you’re taking?”
“It’s more than they said to bring. They might confiscate most of it—I don’t know.” He ran his hand down his pant leg. “I wish I at least knew something about what I’m getting into.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine. You’ll do great. You’ll be doing what you’ve always wanted to do.” Guilt stabbed at her. She ignored it.
“That’s what I keep telling myself.” A slight frown creased his forehead.
“Are you still afraid of another escape attempt?” Another stab of guilt, stronger this time, digging into her guts like one of the knives hidden in her car less than twenty feet away.
He shook his head. “Not really. I mean, yes. But that’s not what’s bothering me.” He paused. Looked down one end of the parking lot, then the other. “I shouldn’t be talking to you about this. If Internal found out…”