Was Jasper even capable of such a horrific scheme? I knew how my parents would answer that question. They were convinced that it was all a part of the Outsiders’ plan to infiltrate the minds of Oportet’s youth to gain supporters for their cause. I had never really given much thought to what most people considered extremist conspiracy theories, but I knew that they were convinced of the Outsiders’ plan to take over Oportet and take down the Council, much like what happened with the former American government.
I didn’t believe a word of it, and neither did most of the citizens of Oportet. There have been countless studies that have shown Oportet to be as much as one hundred times more stable than the American government in its final years. It would take something drastic to take down our government.
I knocked on Jasper’s door, dying to get inside. I was so close to warmth it was painful. Jasper opened the door, taking me in with a look of surprise.
“What in the world…? Luna, it’s awful out there. You really just walked here?” He shut the door behind me, and then pulled me against him. “God, you’re frozen.”
“Well it’s not like I could get my parents to drive me,” I said, shuddering against the warmth of his body.
He pulled away and dangled a set of car keys in front of me. “I was about to come get you. You’re early.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Jasper looked at me like I was speaking a different language. “Why are you apologizing? I’m the one who just let my girlfriend walk two miles in the cold and rain.” I could hear him saying something else, but I wasn’t really listening. Girlfriend. He had just called me his girlfriend. I could picture my face turning red.
Jasper must have noticed my internal freak-out because he’d stopped talking to stare at me. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
What was wrong? Wasn’t that what I wanted?
“Nothing,” I said. Of course it was what I wanted. It was just that saying it out loud made it real. It made everything real: the fight at school, my parents’ disproval, my doubts about Oportet, late night calls and sneaking out to meet Jasper, and the scariest thing of all—every feeling for him I’d ever experienced.
That was when I knew who was the real brainwasher. Jasper might have helped me wake up, but in the end it was still up to me whether or not to stay asleep, or to live and be free. He wasn’t forcing me to think or feel anything. I chose.
Oportet—the Council and their rules—was what took away everyone’s choice. I wanted a choice.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
I jolted out of my trance, my eyes flickering to Jasper’s.
“You’re acting really strange.” His eyes widened. “I am so insensitive, aren’t I?”
“What? Why?”
He sat me down on the living room couch, and tossed me a blanket.
“I should have asked you how it went down with your parents. I never wanted you to get into any trouble.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“It wasn’t your fault!” I protested, wanting to wipe the scowl off of his face. I could use one of those contagious smiles right about now.
“And what he said…”
Now it was my turn to look away. I had tried to suppress the memory of being called a desperate slut in front of whole school.
“He was just trying to lash out at me, and maybe a little at you for choosing the wrong side.” He gave me a weak smile. “And I swear it was never my goal to try to… force… any of my beliefs on you. I just thought you were already… like me.”
“Trust me, I know Kevin was full of shit. I also know he was trying to drive a stake between us, probably for Jenna.” I felt a stab of anger thinking about how cold Jenna had turned. She was my best friend only weeks ago. “I can’t believe she pushed Kevin into starting that fight.”
Jasper stiffened at the sudden sound of voices from the foyer. He shook his head and muttered something under his breath.
“I thought your mother worked at the grocery store on Saturdays,” I said, hearing a female voice matched with Alex’s.
“She does.”
I got up to see the commotion, ignoring Jasper’s protests to stay in the living room. He followed me closely.
My eyes widened when I reached Alex—and a blonde I didn’t recognize. Alex was wearing sunglasses and a hoodie as he came down the stairs, and the girl was wearing a freakishly small dress for her curvy figure, her mascara smeared like she’d slept in it.
“What the hell?” I mumbled quietly. Who wears sunglasses indoors?
The blonde was giggling like a maniac, touching an unresponsive Alex’s arm as she whispered to him. I didn’t see how he was hearing her with his hood up like that.
“Oh, is this your brother?” she squealed. “What a gene pool!”
I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at her enthusiasm.
“How are you still buzzed?” Alex moaned, reaching under his sunglasses to rub his eyes.
Well that made sense. I had never consumed alcohol before, but I’d heard of kids who had broken the rule that forbid anyone from getting drunk or of the possession of alcohol by those below the age of twenty-five.
The blonde’s eyes landed on me. “Who’s that? Is that your sister?”
“She’s at my house enough to be my sister,” Alex muttered. The girl waved at me crazily, and I gave her a small wave back.
“You’re pretty!” she yelled, awkwardly fumbling down the steps. Alex clamped his hands over his ears.
“What did I tell you about screaming in my ear?” Alex growled. He opened the front door, ushering her out.
“Call me!” she whispered loudly, waving goodbye to all of us with a big smile. Her breasts were practically popping out of her red dress.
“He won’t,” I heard Jasper say behind me, earning him a glare from Alex.
“Of course, babe,” Alex said with absolutely zero emotion. Actually, that wasn’t true—the annoyance was detectable, at least to me. The girl seemed content with his answer, and turned to say something else when Alex shut the door in her face.
“What the hell, Alex?” Jasper moved to stand next to me. “She can’t drive like that.”
“She doesn’t have a car, you moron. I drove her here.” Alex said it like we were with him the whole time.
“And you’re not driving her back…to wherever she came from?” I was glad to hear as much disgust in Jasper’s voice as I was feeling towards Alex.
“She’s fine to walk.”
I gawked at him incredulously. Was he being serious? Jasper grabbed his keys, shoving past Alex.
“Dude. She lives in our neighborhood. Chill.” Alex started walking back up the stairs. “At least I think she’s the one who does.” He shrugged and disappeared into his room.
~~~~~
We were on the way back from dropping off the blonde, who we learned was named Sophie, and I was growing more and more unsettled.
“Is everyone on the Outside like Alex?” I blurted. Jasper glanced at me from the driver’s seat and sighed.
“I’m not like that, am I?”
I shook my head.
“Just because you have a choice doesn’t mean you’ll make the wrong one. We might not have ironclad rules out there, but everyone doesn’t choose to be like Alex. I think most people are inherently benevolent, at least for the most part. The rest are screwed up by cruel circumstances.”
“Was Alex?”
“His father was a drunk. My mom kind of kidnapped him when he was barely a teenager, and I say ‘kind of’ because Alex was very willing to get away from his abusive father. But the damage was done. We took him with us to Oportet, but he was already too messed up.” We were now in the driveway, neither of us getting out of the car.
“Is that why you came here? For him?”
Jasper shook his head. “No.” He looked away, taking in a deep breath. I could see that he was preparing himself to say something—something important. “My dad was shot,” he said finally.
I stared at him in disbelief.
“My mom brought us here because she was scared. She wanted us to be safe. Oportet is safe.”
“I’m so sorry,” I breathed. I wasn’t sure what to do, or what to say. I leaned over and wrapped my arms around him, and he leaned into me. I rested my head on his shoulder.
“Come on,” Jasper whispered. “I’m tired of all this heaviness. Let’s go do something light for once.”
I pulled away. “Like what?”
“A zombie apocalypse movie,” he said, the corners of his mouth tipping upwards.
I rolled my eyes, already quite familiar with Jasper’s obsession with zombie movies. They were my least favorite of his illegal stash, but if they made him happy, then I was all in. He’d just better believe we were watching one of Lilly’s vampire movies next.
Chapter Fifteen
A hand moved in front of my face. I was lying on my back, my body motionless but my eyes wide open. I heard Jasper’s voice like it was at the other end of some tunnel.
“Luna? What the hell is going on?”
I sat up. “Alex is a mess,” I mumbled, seeing Jasper flinch like before at the mention of Alex. I moved to a sitting position.
“You were freaking me out! It was like you were somewhere else…. Well, I guess you were.” He exhaled slowly. “What did you remember?” he asked with caution.
“Getting in trouble for the fight with Kevin, me having some kind of epiphany about the meaning of life,” I said.
Jasper smirked.
“And Alex with some random drunk girl,” I finished.
Jasper nodded, seeming to recall those events himself.
“Kevin. I remember that asshole,” he muttered.
“And now, so do I.”
Jasper smiled. “You know, I kind of wish I could relive these memories through your eyes. It has always been so infuriating for me to try and figure out what is going on in that head of yours.”
“Um, I don’t even know what is going on in this head of mine. I thought I had everything figured out until I started getting these memories back. Now I’m realizing how screwed up everything is—apparently for a second time.”
“Are all of the epiphanies wearing you out?” Jasper laughed.
They definitely weren’t making my brain any less confused.
“I’m sorry,” Jasper said suddenly.
“Why are you sorry?”
“You were right that day we spoke outside of the middle school.”
I furrowed my brows trying to remember what I was right about.
“I was playing the victim when I shouldn’t have been. I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through what you have.”
“That was before I knew about the letter you thought I wrote. You had a right to be angry, and it made perfect sense why you were so hurt. It has been killing me to think that you went that many months thinking I’d written something so heartless.”
Jasper was staring at my open window, and I desperately wanted to know what he was thinking about. “Well, in your defense, the letter didn’t sound anything like you. I guess I’d gone so long thinking that you were too good to be true, that when you said all of those things about coming to your senses, it was what I’d been anticipating the whole time.”
That wasn’t at all what I’d expected. “You have got to be joking,” I scoffed.
Jasper narrowed his eyes, and I could sense his frustration at my reaction.
“I thought you knew me better than that.” I still had the remainder of the school year’s worth of memories before the major fallout went down, which meant we would have been close for more than seven months. Yet he relied on his own insecurities instead of everything he had ever learned about me from our time together.
“I thought I did, Luna! I wanted to fight for you, or at least hear you say those things to me in person, but every time I called or knocked on your door your parents said you didn’t want to speak to me. I even came to some of your speeches railing against your rebellious phase and how you were recovering from it. I guess you were just too convincing.”
I couldn’t speak. I had no idea that Jasper had put himself through all of that for me.
“I didn’t know what went wrong—or what I did wrong—for you to completely change overnight. You wanted nothing to do with me, and you were suddenly the ghost of the girl I used to love.”
I winced, his words sending all kinds of pain through my system.
“I’d been keeping my distance all summer, and then one day I decided to talk to you in the parking lot after your Oportet Day speech, and you looked straight through me. I could feel that you had forgotten me.”
“Jasper.” I turned to look at him, willing him to meet my eyes. When he finally did, I had to hold myself together with whatever I had left. His eyes shined like glass—and never in my life could I handle seeing Jasper cry because of the pain I had caused him. “I am so sorry. I don’t remember everything, but I’m beginning to, and I can honestly swear to you that I would never choose to forget you. Never.”
“I know,” he whispered.
I lost all of my thoughts as he leaned closer to me, and everything I was going to say disappeared with them.
He tucked my hair behind my ears, making me feel vulnerable without the long dark strands to hide my face.
“When do your parents get back from the conference?” Jasper asked. Megan was staying at her best friend Stacy’s house for the weekend. Stacy was an only child so her parents were more than happy to help. My parents wanted me to stay with Jenna, forcing me to have a very awkward conversation about how Jenna and I were no longer friends. I tried to stay vague, dodging all of Mother’s prying questions.
“Sunday night.” It was Friday, and they had left a few hours ago. My parents had been extremely secretive about the whole thing, so I knew something big was going down within the government. “Do you want something to eat? Or drink?” I asked, feeling rude considering we could go anywhere in the empty house.
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere except your room,” Jasper said.
He had been in my room before? I blushed, fearing what my mind hid from me.
“I could give you a tour, if you want,” I offered, thankful we had moved on from talking about things that made us cry.
“No, um, I should go,” Jasper said.
I nodded, trying not to look as disappointed as I felt. “Okay.” I watched as he made it to the window, and then hesitated.
“I forgot something,” he said finally. He turned and came back to me, placing his hands on either side of my face and pulling me in for a kiss.
It was over too quickly, and after giving me a sad smile, he climbed out the window.
“You know you can just go out the front door, right?”
“Yeah, but it makes me look cooler this way. More badass.”
I laughed, but I knew that the sound was only heard by me. Jasper was gone.
~~~~~
Mother called to check in on me, rambling on about how proud of me she was for changing my ways, no doubt in response to whatever Tomlinson had told them about Jasper approaching me. Everyone was trying hard to keep Jasper and me apart, and no one seemed to suspect anything suspicious from my end… yet. This secret had an expiration date though; I could feel it. I also had a feeling that date would coincide with the conclusion of Jasper’s trial. There was no way I was just going to sit around and wait for them to throw him back to the Outside.
“So have you decided?” Mother asked, not even attempting to tone down the expectancy in her voice.
“Yes.” I took a breath. “I want to be a teacher. An English teacher.” I heard silence on the other line, and I could feel the irrational guilt for disappointing her. I knew it was my choice—my life—but I hated letting my parents down. They had dreamed of me working in the government since before conception. As long as I lived in Oportet, I was doing what I wanted. I was already being restricted enough.
“That’s wonderful, sweetie,” she said softly. “I’m very proud of you for getting this far in life.”
“Thanks. Me too.”
“Don’t forget to call the Occupational Placement Office to let them know of your decision. You could come to work with me one day and tell them in person.” The last sentence sounded more like a question, and I couldn’t help but wince at the hopefulness in her voice. Taking a tour of the Council’s evil lair sounded far from appealing, and it definitely wouldn’t change my mind.
“Oh, no thank you. I need to call them soon anyway. I was planning on taking care of it tomorrow, before you got back. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone.”
“I’m sure they could wait just one more day, Luna. Don’t be silly.”
I sighed in defeat. Fine. “Okay. I guess I could do that.”
“Great!” she squealed.
I couldn’t remember the last time my mother sounded that excited. I imagined she was already working on an elaborate scheme as we spoke to ensure I chose her dream job instead of mine.
Suddenly Mother started speaking very quickly. “Oh, and I don’t think I would be able to take you in until next Monday. Sorry sweetie, the Council has just enacted something huge, so I’ll be swamped this week. I have to go, bye!”
I caught myself smiling at Mother’s sly maneuver.
Nothing was going to get in the way of her dream of becoming the most powerful family in Oportet. Nothing except me—I had been tearing that dream at the seams since the day I got in that school fight. I couldn’t stop now.
“See you Sunday,” I murmured as the phone beeped, signaling she had hung up.
I hadn’t heard from Jasper since last night, and I was beginning to doubt myself. I thought I had read the situation correctly—that Jasper was finally coming around to trusting me again, especially now that he knew I never broke up with him or hurt him in that letter—but there was also the possibility that our relationship was broken beyond repair. It had been months since the accident, which meant his cynical view of me wouldn’t be easy to shake off. He had lived through months of thinking I didn’t love him, and if he had believed the fake letter as much as he had appeared to earlier that week, he would have gone months thinking I never loved him at all.
Awaken (The Awaken Series Book 1) Page 11