Alex’s crooked smile vanished as the sound of footsteps reappeared.
“Fuck,” he muttered. He glared into my eyes, his raw, evil anger sending the coldest of chills down my spine. “If you make any sound at all, I swear to God I will cut out your tongue.”
I believed him.
I used my free hand to slam it against the wall, and the noise seemed like the loudest thing I had ever heard.
In a split second two things happened at once: Alex’s door flew open, and Alex released me, only to spin me around and send me flying towards the dresser.
I was lucky the first time when I hit my side. This time, my head collided with the edge of the wood.
I was spinning. I tried desperately to stop—the motion creating a kind of nausea I had never experienced before—but there I was, spinning and spinning until the room came in and out of focus, until darkness pushed its way toward me, enveloping me into its numb embrace.
~~~~~
My head hurt. Something like a blanket was on top of me, and I felt the plushness of a mattress beneath me. Where was I? How did I get there?
I opened my eyes to a room painted in dark blue, the window next to the bed casting daylight onto the carpeted floor. I noticed a backpack leaning against what I assumed was a closet door, and it only took me seconds to recognize the plain black design.
Everything came back to me in that moment. I knew where I was, I knew how I had gotten there, and I knew why I felt so terrible.
Alex had forced himself on me. Jasper had saved me.
I pushed myself up and out of bed—Jasper’s bed. The sudden movement made me sway on my feet, still dizzy. I crept toward the closed door. I heard voices on the other side of the door, and I froze in place, my heart pounding and limbs heavy. I raised my hand, perplexed as I watched it begin to violently shake.
I placed my head against the cool wood, tuning into the voices.
“You did what?” I recognized the strained voice as Lilly’s.
“We already gave him enough chances, and each time you let him charm you into believing he had somehow changed. He obviously hasn’t,” Jasper spat. The hatred in his voice sent a chill down the length of my spine.
“What are you saying, Jasper? That this is my fault?”
“No, of course not. I’ve covered for him for far too long, and this has just made the decision that much easier for me.”
“So that’s it? You didn’t even think to come to me first?”
Jasper started to say something but Lilly cut him off.
“You just turned him in, and they made the decision on the spot?”
“He was already on probation. He was obviously drunk, and I made a point of explaining my concern for his violent tendencies.” Jasper spat the words with an intense kind of rage. “The guards are holding him until you have a formal meeting with the Council. They need to make sure that we hold a different set of values, and then Alex will be taken back to the Outside.”
“I don’t know about this…”
“Mom, he would have… If I hadn’t stopped him…” Jasper trailed off, and I had a pretty good idea of the horrible things we were both imagining.
“Neither of us knows exactly what happened,” Lilly said, exasperated.
“Why are you defending him?” Jasper roared. There was a beat of silence, and when he spoke next his voice was more leveled. “What the hell is wrong with him?”
“You know what’s wrong with him. Darren gave him enough bruises and blows to the head to really screw him up.” The hallway was silent for a moment. “I need some space to wrap my head around this. You should go check on Luna.”
I got back under the covers of the bed, feeling cold and empty inside. I counted each footstep as Jasper drew nearer to his bedroom door, the task somehow keeping me from falling apart.
Jasper slipped into the room, clicking the door shut behind him as quietly as humanly possible. When he turned and saw that I was sitting up, he just stopped and stared at me.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“How’s your head?”
“It hurts.” There was no blood, but I could feel a lump the size of a ping-pong ball on the side of my temple where I hit it.
Jasper started moving again, making his way to the bed. He sat next to me, and rubbed his eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Luna,” he murmured. He slowly raised a hand to my face, brushing across my cheekbone. “What happened?”
I swallowed, looking down at my hands. Jasper watched me, wrapping his fingers around mine.
I sighed. “I thought you would be home,” I started, watching Jasper tense up. “He was drunk, and he just…wouldn’t listen to me. I couldn’t get away.” I could almost feel the anger Jasper was sending off. “He pinned me against the wall, and then he kind of…kissed me.” Jasper looked away, flinching like I had hit him. “He told me not to make any noise when he heard you in the house, but I did. Then I hit the dresser.”
I looked down at my hands in his, my eyes widening as I took in the swollen, red nature of his knuckles. There was a layer of dried blood, and the thought of Jasper hitting something hard enough to cause that sort of damage made me uneasy.
“What did you do to your hand?”
“What do you think?”
I nodded, remembering how hard Jasper had hit Kevin. Even then I didn’t remember his hand looking that bad.
“I beat the shit out of him.”
“So he’s being expelled from Oportet?”
“Yes.”
Everything was still. Everything was quiet.
“I don’t want to go home,” I whispered.
“Then don’t.”
~~~~~
My parents had no idea that Jenna and I had ended our friendship. They happily allowed me to stay the night at her house. If they knew where I would really be spending the night then I would never be allowed to leave the house again, and Jasper would probably be expelled along with his cousin.
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” Jasper whispered into my ear. We had been talking and watching whatever movies I wanted until late into the night.
With Jasper it was easy to forget. He was like a drug that could take away all of the pain; and I was addicted.
“Lilly is okay with this?”
“Yeah, she doesn’t care.”
It was so unusual for me to hear about Lilly’s laidback style of parenting. I knew my mother and father were at the far end of the parenting spectrum, but so was Lilly—in the opposite direction.
“Luna,” Jasper whispered, barely audible. My head was resting on his shoulder, and Jasper was tracing designs into the palm of my hand. “I’m in love with you.”
I had so many words forming in my mouth, but they were all trapped. The silence was so heavy, and all I could focus on was the feeling of Jasper’s shoulders moving with each breath he took.
“And I’m in love with you,” I said.
I had never felt closer to anyone in my entire life. To find someone that I would do anything, go anywhere, or even fight for was incredible.
In that moment, I knew that Jasper Williams could break my heart—and that I could break his.
Chapter Nineteen
When I opened my eyes, Jasper was staring at me in such a pained way. I had to take a moment to make sense of everything I had just remembered.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, not understanding his troubled expression.
“What did you remember?”
“I asked you first.”
“You were crying, Luna.”
I drew my brows together. I raised a hand to my face, feeling the moisture on my cheeks.
“What did you remember?” Jasper asked impatiently.
“Exactly what you didn’t want me to.” Everything made sense now. I knew there was something Jasper wasn’t telling me—something he didn’t want me to remember. And this was it. He didn’t want me to remember everything not because of anything he did, but because
he was trying to protect me from what his cousin did. “Alex,” was all I said.
“I’m sorry… Again.”
“Hey,” I said, grabbing his hand that rested between us. “Alex’s actions were not your fault.” I stared into his slightly panicked eyes, but almost immediately, his pained expression hardened. He looked away and pulled his hand from mine.
I had noticed the physical differences between Jasper from last year and Jasper from the present, but I was just coming around to distinguishing the emotional differences.
Jasper had all of his defenses up. He was closed off, and the walls he was using to defend himself were effectively keeping me at a distance. I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t trust me either.
“Do you want me to take you home?” Jasper asked.
“Is that what you want?” Everything was becoming so confusing. One minute I thought we had a chance to pick up where we left off, and the next it felt like something was blocking that from ever happening.
“I’m leaving soon, Luna. I don’t want you to become attached to something with an expiration date.” Jasper spoke as if he was at a business meeting, his emotionless state slowly killing me inside.
“What are you saying?” This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.
“I think that a clean break would be the most… beneficial… for both of us.”
Anger boiled inside me. Jasper couldn’t even look me in the eyes.
I had my answer. There was no hope for us. If there was, then Jasper would have put up more of a fight. Maybe he had nothing to fight for.
“I just don’t get it. You keep contradicting yourself… It’s like there’s two different versions of you, and I never know which one will be making an appearance.” When he came in through my window Friday night, it seemed like all he wanted was everything to return to how it was. Now he wanted to end it for good? It didn’t add up.
“I know. You’re just going to have to trust me on this, okay? I’m trying to do the right thing here. Please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”
I was far too angry to shoot back any of the coherent arguments swirling around in my brain, so I just pushed open the car door.
“Luna,” Jasper started, putting his hand on my arm.
“Don’t talk to me, and definitely don’t touch me,” I said, pulling my arm free and getting out of the car.
I tuned out whatever Jasper was saying behind me as I made my way to the forest, where his car couldn’t trail me on the way back. There was no way in hell I was going to let him drive me home. I didn’t even care that it was starting to pour down rain.
I learned the path to my house through my memories, and I tried without success to calm myself down as I navigated through the huge trees. I hated myself for thinking that Jasper would follow me into the forest, that he would tell me that he made a mistake.
Jasper was probably in his warm home right now, on his high horse believing his delusions about doing the right thing, while I was out in the rain loathing myself for believing my delusions about everything working out perfectly.
Since when had anything worked out perfectly? Last year we were hit with nothing but obstacles, but I still had hope that Jasper and I would have some sort of unrealistically flawless future together. I knew just how much that hopeful fantasy worked out. Someone took it all away, making any possible future with Jasper impossible.
It was a maddening cycle of hope and loss. Now all of my hope was gone, and the very thing that made me believe in the concept of hope was gone along with it.
I was alone, and it was all too easy for me to give up now that I had lost what I was fighting for.
~~~~~
I tried to keep myself busy until my parents returned from the conference. If I allowed myself any free time I’d surely suffer a mental breakdown.
The phone didn’t ring. There was never a knock at the door. No one was climbing through my window.
Jasper wasn’t bluffing. He was gone.
~~~~~
“How was your weekend with Stacy?” Mother asked Megan. My parents got home late last night, and they both seemed tenser than usual.
“It was great,” Megan lied.
“What about you, Luna?” Father asked. “How big of a party did you throw?”
I smiled, finding legitimate humor in his joke. I might not have thrown a party, but I definitely hadn’t played the perfect daughter role while they were gone. That smile quickly dissolved as the memory of Jasper cutting me out of his life replaced the memory of him kissing me in my bedroom.
“It was also great,” I lied. The Beckham sisters had a pretty shitty weekend between the two of us.
“So, what was the big government thingy that brought everyone to the Capitol building?” Megan asked not-so-eloquently.
Mother cast a glance at Father before answering. “Well, this is a very confidential matter, and will not be released to the public for another couple weeks.” Megan put on her best pout, her eyes pleading for details.
Normally, I would be begging right along with her, but I was having a hard time caring. I stared down at my plate of waffles, mindlessly moving pieces around with my fork.
“Okay, fine. You are forbidden to discuss this with anyone, do you understand?”
“Yes,” Megan said with obvious excitement.
“Luna?”
I lifted up my head, momentarily puzzled by all the eyes at the table on me.
“What? Oh, sure, I won’t say anything to anyone.” Who would I tell?
“The Council has been drafting this plan for over a year now, and it was recently voted on and validated. The conference was to present this plan to all of the committees, my treasury committee included, and to set the plan into action. They’re calling it the Expansion Project. I think the name is self-explanatory enough, isn’t it?” Mother said icily.
“Um, no. What does that mean?” Megan asked, practically bouncing up and down in her seat.
“It means that I have to slave over paperwork for the next couple months, just to allocate funds for a project that puts my family in danger.”
“Puts everyone in danger,” Father added.
Megan and I exchanged annoyed looks at their lack of explanation.
“They’re expanding Oportet,” he elaborated.
“What? How?” I asked incredulously. They had my full attention now.
Mother’s lips were tightened into a thin line. “Who knows? I’m not on a construction or defense committee, and the Council refuses to answer anyone’s questions.”
Father shot her a look, as if he was wordlessly chastising her tone when speaking of our leaders.
“They will be holding another summit this weekend to explain everything to everyone involved in the project. Your father has applied to be a part of the Defense Committee, to make sure our guards will be protecting Oportet the best they can.”
Mother’s lack of trust in our government was surprising. She usually put her absolute faith in the Council and all of its decisions. It was against Rule Number Two to do anything else.
Father cleared his throat. “That’s enough about that, let’s talk about how your school year has been going, Megan. You’re about halfway through the semester, aren’t you?”
The conversation was officially over, leaving me to drown in my own thoughts. At least now I had others to dwell on besides Jasper, like the mental image of Oportet’s walls being torn down.
I had to admit, I almost liked the thought of everything that separated us from the Outside reduced to crumbled ruins.
I wished I had been born on the Outside. That would have made my life so much simpler. I wouldn’t have had to suppress all of the thoughts that weren’t up to par with this society’s values, everything I said and did would be free from restrictions, and I would have had the whole truth from the start.
There was a small part of me that wished my memories had stayed buried. Ignorance was bliss, and what had I gained from knowing
the truth? Jasper didn’t want me anymore, Aunt May was dead, and I was trapped playing the part of a brain-wiped version of myself—while I was actually dying inside from all that I knew and not being able to do anything about it.
Was I really better off?
Chapter Twenty
Winter break came and went, and spring was steadily approaching. My life was made up of time spent at Aunt May’s home, time spent with Jasper and Lilly, and the lull of schoolwork and family time.
As the year progressed, my parents were pestering me more and more about what I planned to do during my gap year—and what I planned to do with my life.
Jasper and I rarely spoke about the future. We figured that if we didn’t talk about it, then it wouldn’t come. All we could hope for was for everything to stay as it was.
I finished my sessions with the school counselor. I had been meeting with her every Wednesday, and by the end I had her totally convinced that she had changed me, that I was a model citizen again, and that what I had said about being brainwashed was just something Jasper had led me to believe.
I was sitting at my desk, working on a research paper for English class. I complained with everyone else when it was first assigned, but I was secretly looking forward to having the excuse to write. I just wished I could write about something other than the mechanics of Oportet’s government.
I had my headphones in, listening to a disk Jasper had given me for my birthday. It was filled with my favorite music from the Outside.
My parents both had laptops of their own that they used for work, and they had bought a family laptop years ago so that Megan and I could work on school assignments.
Jasper had shown me how to play music from the disk without burning the files to the computer, which meant I could listen without leaving a trace. I shuddered at the thought of my parents listening to the music on this CD—the music that evoked emotion, rather than the dull music allowed in Oportet.
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