Only Ever Yours

by Louise O'Neill

  “Fine.” I give in. “I’ll see you at bedtime for my SleepSound.” She doesn’t respond and my nerves begin to crackle. “chastity-anne?”

  “Not this week.”

  “What?” I say in panic, my breath becoming shallow. “But I need my SleepSound.”

  “Is there a problem?” chastity-ruth murmurs in my ear, sneaking up out of nowhere and making me jump with fright.

  “No problem,” chastity-anne says, shooting me a warning glance. “She was just collecting her meds.”

  “Very good.” chastity-ruth unzips my bag—“A backpack. How very utilitarian chic”—and removes my ePad, eFone and makeup bag with a flourish. I watch in stunned silence as she glides back to her desk.

  “Please, chastity-anne. I’m begging you.”

  “I can’t help you with that,” she says, as if I’ve asked her for an extra can of EuroCola.

  “Thanks,” I say bitterly, picking up my tray, my hands clutching the edges so tightly my knuckles are blanched of color. megan and the twins are at the top table, bags and sweaters piled on the empty seats. Maybe they will slip me half a pill, just for tonight.

  “Did you see the latest update about the Carmichaels on the Daily Tale this morning?” megan says, examining her manicure for chips.

  “Of course. I needed to watch as much as I could before they took our ePads away,” jessie says mournfully.

  “I can’t believe cassie is saying Charles hit her.”

  “Why didn’t she say she walked into a door or something? What happened to saving face?” liz says and the others start laughing at the unintentional irony. “Oh, shut up! You know what I mean.”

  “He’s yummy,” jessie sighs. “He could hit me any day he wanted.”

  “I’d let him make shit of me,” megan says, the three of them now laughing hysterically.

  “Hey.”

  They stare up at me as if they have no idea who I am. It’s the same way they look at liu, an air of bewilderment undercut with exasperation.

  “You look as tired as I feel,” jessie says, her head dropping to examine the mirrored table. She looks at me again and then back at her reflection. “Thank the Father for makeup.”

  “We’re all tired today,” megan’s tone is accusing and I want to scream at her. This was her idea in the first place.

  “Can I sit down, megan?” I ask, conscious of a table of 12th years pointing and whispering.

  She leans back in her chair, her black lace cropped top rising a little above the high waistband of her black spandex pants. Her hair has been styled with a severe middle parting, her eyes lined in forest-green kohl, eyes that are working their way from my feet to my greasy ponytail, lingering at my midriff.

  “Sorry.” She shrugs. “Those seats are saved for the others.”

  I can feel a lump form in my throat, threatening to choke me.

  “iman. Over here.”

  iman, a pretty 15th year, is chatting loudly to a girl with waist-length ginger hair and a doll-like face. She stops, pointing at herself to verify that megan is speaking to the correct person.

  “Yes, you! And lily. Have breakfast with us!” megan coos as they sit down. “Why are we not friends on MyFace? I’ll fix that once we get our ePads back,” she lies. No one ever befriends younger girls on MyFace.

  “freida. Wait.”

  “Yes?” I say hopefully, spinning around. There’s still space at the table, after all.

  “You need a pedicure.” I look down at my feet, at the chipped nail polish, and I curl my toes. “You’re welcome!” megan calls after me, iman and lily open-mouthed at this 16th-year drama.

  The Nutrition Center blurs before me. I know agyness and cara would let me sit with them, but there isn’t any room left at their table. All the other girls seem to have handbags and empty ePad cases placed resolutely on any spare seats. Even the younger eves avoid eye contact with me.

  “No other seats left, #630?” chastity-ruth says as I take a seat by her desk. Her voice is so loud that everyone turns to watch as isabel and I are reunited.

  “Be careful,” I say testily as isabel reaches across the table to grab her water glass, her arm bumping mine. I can feel her body heat radiating against my skin. If you had been in the garden, I wouldn’t have gotten in trouble. If you were still my friend, I wouldn’t have to try to be friends with megan.

  I take the tarnished silver lid off my tureen and stare at the bowl of porridge, grains almost jumping out of the congealed gray sludge. I take a bite. What weight did the PSP say I was this morning? It said I was at target, but it was wrong, it was wrong, it was wrong. I saw the way megan looked at my stomach; she could see the blubber ripping through my skin. I’m disgusting. I take another bite of porridge but it slimily crawls back up my throat, like a slug. I run, the blood roaring in my ears, and I make it just in time to fall to my knees and see yellow bile spattering the back of the toilet bowl.

  The black-and-white tiles line the floors of the Vomitorium too, the sinks carved from cream marble, the taps plated in gleaming chrome. There is a private alcove tucked into the corner and I trace my hand over the faded wallpaper—a motif of women from the Zones, unaware that their foto is being taken. One woman is on a climbing wall at the gym, a red circle around her sweaty face. Another is climbing out of a swimming pool, a vivid red arrow pointing to dimpling cellulite on her thighs. There are countless others, a map of red circles highlighting their shame. The same pattern is replicated on the round woven mat that I’m standing on, staring at myself in the full-length mirror hanging on the wall.

  “You are at an acceptable weight.”

  I jerk back, my heart racing.

  “It’s the mat speaking. It weighs you.” isabel is standing in the entrance to one of the bathroom stalls, that shapeless black dress doing little to disguise her increasing bulk. It’s the first time she has spoken to me in weeks.

  “Make sure to avail yourself of the facilities.” She points at the display of beauty products and bottles, neatly arranged on a chrome-plated shelf above the three sinks. There are bottles of mouth freshener, some sort of wash to make sure cavities don’t form in your teeth, ExoLax tablets, backup supplies of ipecac syrup to help with vomiting and some tubes of lip gloss. I gargle with mouthwash, the sound of isabel retching in the toilet behind me clearly audible. I creep closer until the tips of my fingers are touching the door between us. How did we get here? How did sixteen years of friendship disintegrate so fast and with such ease?

  “We’ll be friends forever, freida.”

  “But what happens if I don’t make the companion third? What will we do then?”

  “You will.” isabel was confident. “And if you don’t, I’ll sort it out.”

  “How? How can you sort it out?”

  “I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”

  “But best friends tell each other everything,” I said. “Best friends don’t have secrets.”

  She turned away. It was yet another one of those moments where I could sense the secrets bubbling inside of her, making no sound.

  Chapter 10

  As soon as I wake up I reach for my ePad. But it isn’t there the first morning or the second morning or the third or the fourth. Access denied.

  I do the splits perfectly in PE. I lose half a pound in two days. I get the spinach and pig-meat frittata from the lo-carb section for lunch. And no one else knows. I mentally construct a MyFace status, polishing the memories carefully until they shine. The need to record my life is as fundamental as my need to breathe. Without MyFace, I’m floating. I have nothing to anchor me down, to prove I exist.

  It’s only one week.

  I count the days in a week, then the hours, the minutes. I find myself watching the clock, wishing the days away until I can have something, anything, to distract me from this frenzy of thoughts like a nest of wasps exploding in my brain. Thoughts and thoughts and thoughts. I am possessed by them.

  “Eggies again? I’m so sick of eggies.” me
gan is staring at the BeBetter buffet selection.

  “Is there a problem, #767?” chastity-ruth swoops down on her.

  “No problem.” megan, arching her back, her strapless minidress rising up her thighs, liz and jessie in rapt adoration by her side.

  Haven’t we done this before?

  The volume in the cafeteria is mounting. We fall on each other, desperate to talk, words spilling out of our mouths as if they’re too hot to swallow. How’re you? How are you? I don’t care. Listen to me. Listen to me. Mealtimes are stuffed with monologues thrown at one another, each waiting for a pause in the conversation that we can claim for ourselves.

  “And then she said …”

  “… I had to, don’t you …”

  “… same thing happened to me, only way worse …”

  “That reminds me of when I …”

  “Do you remember when I … ?”

  chastity-ruth has increased Organized Recreation to three hours every evening to settle our nerves. I crawl into my glass coffin, cramming amnesia into my mouth.

  “Are you okay?” isabel has stopped eating. I can see chewed up chick-chick in her mouth. The bones of the chicken reform, recreating his skeleton. He starts chirping but she swallows, swallows the bird down, all the way into her stomach. He’s going to lay eggs, so many eggs, and when all the baby birds are hatched they will peck and peck and peck their way out of her stomach. I cover my eyes with my hands. There are no animals anymore. They were all destroyed.

  “Are you okay, freida?” isabel asks again.

  “I’m tired.”

  “Still not sleeping?”

  “No.”

  I had thought my sleeping pattern was irregular when I only managed four or five hours a night on SleepSound. That seems indulgent now. When we return to our cubicles after evening meal, we are in Isolation until breakfast the next morning, chastity-ruth patrolling the dorms more vigilantly than I can ever remember. I lie awake, listening to the nighttime Messages play on and on. I must be a good girl, I must, I must, I must.

  “I haven’t slept since the night in the garden.”

  “You haven’t slept in four days?”

  I start laughing, convulsions moving through me.

  “That sounds dangerous.” I can tell by isabel’s face she doesn’t find it as funny as I do. “Maybe you should ask chastity-ruth if you can skip the chamber session this morning. You’re in no state to be exercising.”

  “Thanks, isabel,” I say. “The gym keeps me skinny! Math is hard. Pink is my favorite color. Wanna go shopping? You’re my best friend.”

  “Hey, girls.” megan and the twins approach before isabel can reply. chastity-ruth is distracted, leaving her desk to yell at a group of 5th years for laughing too loudly. The three of them have styled their hair in textured side braids, eyes lined heavily with black kohl.

  “Hey.” isabel continues to chew her food slowly.

  “isabel.” megan’s voice is like silk. “Have you been watching the Carmichaels? What’s happening with Charles and carrie?” She sighs. “It’s so typical that we’re banned from TV during such a crucial period in their lives.”

  isabel takes a sip of water before placing the glass back on the table. “I don’t watch that show.”

  The lights have caught fire in the twins’ hair and they merge into one, then two, then one. Are they secretly the same person? My mouth is dry. Little stars leak out of megan’s skin, replacing her eyeballs with golden stars. My mouth is so dry. I grab isabel’s glass and gulp down what’s left in it. I drop it back on the table, looking at the girl looking back at me. Greasy dark hair pulled away from an ashen face. Is that the girl they keep calling freida?

  “You look like shit.” Star-eyes is talking to me, the clones nodding in the background.

  “But skinny! You’ve lost five pounds at least. You could totally create your own diet program,” the clones tell me. They might be jealous. I didn’t think machines could have feelings.

  It’s true, I am skinny. My bones jostle underneath my skin, fighting to be the first one to pierce my flesh.

  “Food tastes of nothing.” I don’t look the clones in the eyes. They will turn me to stone.

  “Why is she slurring her words?”

  “She’s fine,” isabel answers abruptly.

  I am fine, I am fine, I am fine.

  “Eggies for lunch? I’m so sick of eggies.” megan is bickering with the stacks of silver tureens again and again and again.

  “Haven’t we done this before? Haven’t we done this before? Haven’t we done this before?”

  “What?” megan stares at me.

  “What?” I answer back. “What? What? What? What?”

  “Why do you keep repeating everything?”

  Someone is turning the volume controls on her voice up and down and up and down. My eyes are turning inside and then out, they are too big for the sockets, they are going to fall out, fall to the floor like ping-pong balls, bounce, bounce, bounce.

  “What? Haven’t we done this before? Haven’t we done this before? Haven’t we done this before?”

  “Is there a problem here?” chastity-ruth swoops down, black robes billowing.

  Haven’t we done this before?

  Blackness swarms and I see nothing as the floor rises to meet me, to be my dancing partner.

  Chapter 11

  “freida?”

  Tiredness is pulling me under. I’m trying to keep my head up, claw my way out of this never-ending dream, but I keep falling back. The world blinks once, twice. A bald head is floating before me. I should nod to say that I am awake, but my skull feels like a burden. I close my eyes again.

  “I’ll wait here until she wakes up, chastity-magdalena.” Another voice, a girl. Younger.

  “You’re not supposed to be here. You might get in trouble.”

  “It’s me.” Her voice cracks a little. “I can’t get in trouble, can I?”

  Footsteps walking away. A hand on my forehead, brushing away my hair.

  freida, freida.

  My name is freida.

  I push the suffocating blanket off me.

  There are two old windows in the wall facing me, blocked up with square mirror panes surrounded by a mahogany border. There is another, empty, bed next to me in this large, white room.

  I am not in my dorm.

  “You’re awake.”

  She’s sitting on a stripped wooden chair at the end of the bed, so low that she has to semi-rise out of the seat in order to see me over the bed frame.

  “How are you feeling?” she asks, groping for the switch on the wall, both of us blinking as she turns the light on. Her face is knotted in anxiety but softer somehow, more like the isabel I used to know.

  “What happened?”

  “You fainted in the cafeteria. You’ve been in Sick Bay ever since.”

  “I fainted? Did everyone see? Were people laughing?”

  “We thought you’d had a heart attack or something. They had to bring a Doctor in from the Euro-Zone to examine you. He was furious that an eve with a known sleep disorder was deprived of SleepSound, accused chastity-anne and chastity-ruth of neglect.”

  “How do you know? Who told you all this?” I ask, but she merely shrugs before saying, “You’ve been out for two days now.”

  “Out? Out as in unconscious?”

  “Seriously, you need to calm down. chastity-magdalena won’t be happy if she comes in and finds you agitated.”

  “I’m not agitated,” I say agitatedly.

  She looks at me skeptically and pulls her ePad out of the battered leather satchel hanging off the back of her chair.

  “freida, I think I know you well enough to know when you’re feeling anxious.”

  And in that moment there is so much I want to say to her I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

  “Okay. I’m agitated,” I admit, and isabel throws her head back in laughter. A braid is holding her silky white hair back from her lightly freckled
face, her eyes lit up with amusement. I try not to look below her shoulders, but I can’t stop myself. She’s in the same black dress, but I can see the extra bulk collecting at her neck, on her arms. When she moves, the material sticks to the rolls of fat around her tummy. I can count them as easily as I can count freja’s ribs. I feel nausea, pity, and, worst of all, a shiver of glee. If there were photos of us in our bikinis on Your Body or Mine, I would be chosen. For the first time against isabel, I would win.

  “It’s been strange on MyFace with everyone banned,” she says, fiddling with her ePad. “My news feed is nonexistent.”

  “At least you have access to it. I feel like my arm has been hacked off with a rusty saw.”

  “Lovely visual, freida. So dramatic,” she pretends to scold me. “Come here, I’ll give you a look at mine.”

  “Oh, can we? Can we go on to Artificial?”

  isabel pushes herself out of the squat little chair and stands at my left shoulder. She leans in so that I can see the screen properly, her hair tickling my cheek. She still smells of lavender. If I close my eyes, I could be five again, huddled with isabel after yet another clash with chastity-ruth. A wave of affection for her crashes over me, a weakness I thought I had defeated.

  “The big story is still the Charles and carrie Carmichael story,” she says.

  “What happened?”

  “He thought she was being too ‘friendly’ with another Inheritant at his birthday party. He broke her nose and two of her ribs.”

  “He hit her in the face? I can’t believe that.”

  “It’s true. They did a special edition on it—‘Combating with the Carmichaels.’”

  “Why didn’t she deny it?”

  “He did it on a live broadcast. They couldn’t cover it up.”

  “He’s yummy. I’d let him beat me any day.” I repeat megan’s words.

  “Don’t.” isabel rebukes me sharply. “Don’t say that.”

  I look at the ePad. Charles’s arms are folded across his chest defensively. I click on the video “… and what happens between me and my companion is my business. I reserve the right to do what I want in my own home …” I turn the sound off. His lips are still moving. carrie is standing behind him, the thin straps of her cream slip dress falling off her shoulders. Her face is beautifully made up but you can see the shadowing underneath, her eyes huge with defeat.