Only Ever Yours

by Louise O'Neill

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t speak to me like that, freida,” megan mutters, still facing toward the front of the classroom.

  “That’s big of you,” I say, keeping an eye on chastity-theresa.

  “You’re obviously under a lot of stress. And who can blame you?”

  “If you have something to say to me, megan, just say it to my face.” I sound a lot braver than I feel.

  “I wasn’t talking about you. There is no need to be so sensitive.”

  “Who were you talking about then?”

  “isabel. Surely when I said ‘lacking in self-control’ you could have guessed.” She and the twins snicker, coughing loudly to cover it as chastity-theresa looks up.

  “isabel has been trying to be good,” I say quietly, pretending to scan through images on-screen.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. Has she really been trying, would you say?”

  Everyone else has put their earbuds in as if they’re listening to music or watching digi-vids, but I know they’re all eavesdropping, afraid to miss out on any drama.

  “She’s committed to getting back to target weight.”

  “That’s not what I heard,” megan says in a sing-song voice, slicking some baby hairs at the nape of her neck into her bun.

  “Oh, megan. Always so cryptic.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” I reply, giddy with daring. “No need to be so sensitive.”

  “Well, if you don’t believe me …” she says. “You have that video, don’t you, liz?”

  “Sure.” liz pulls her fone from her pocket. There is an outbreak of muffled beeps in bags, flashes of light, the buzzing of eFones vibrating against wooden desks.

  “liz,” megan says, “I meant for you to send it to freida only.”

  “Sorry?” liz smirks, a conspiratorial look flashing between them.

  I fumble for my fone with shaking hands, a chill prickling the back of my neck as I see everyone else in the class doing the same.

  It’s a digi-vid, about three minutes long. I watch as chastity-bernadette leaves the chastities’ quarters, hands wagging fussily, forgetting to secure the gates. And there’s isabel, sneaking in behind her, still wearing that black dress over her gym leggings, stringy hair clinging to her head. The camera cuts to the chastities’ office. There is a large tray on the desk, containing triangle sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The camera zooms in on isabel’s face as she stuffs the food into her mouth. She gags slightly, bringing up a chunky fluid, some of it spraying onto her leggings. She doesn’t seem to notice, she just keeps shoving food in, even swallowing back down vomit-encrusted bread. Disgusted groans fill the classroom. Where did megan get this footage?

  “Girls …” chastity-theresa raises her voice, looking as if she wishes she was anywhere else but here. “Girls, please be quiet.”

  I can see them all, ecstatic horror in their eyes, updating MyFace statuses on their eFones almost involuntarily, words whispering. Disgusting … Obsolete … Worthless … Sickened …

  As the bell shrieks, I break into a run, ignoring chastity-theresa yelling, “Come back right now, young lady.” At isabel’s cubicle I’m faced with the corrugated steel wall and I grip the handle at the base of the door and roll it up forcefully. She’s sitting on the floor, stripped down to her underwear, her stomach painfully distended. She’s shoving chocco bars into her mouth, practically inhaling them. It looks like a trash pit in there, wrappers and crumbs littering the floor.

  “Poor girl,” isabel had sighed as we watched christy take a seat under chastity-ruth’s desk for her supervised dinner and poke at a plate of salad leaves.

  “Hmm.” I wasn’t really listening, staring at the piece of uneaten chocco cake in front of me, taunting me.

  “I don’t understand though,” isabel continued, cutting up her veggies. “She keeps saying how fat she feels, yet every time I look at her she has a chocco bar in her hands. Why doesn’t she just eat less?”

  “She’s weak.” I shrugged, pretending that I didn’t understand how the prickling of loathing at the sight of a spare pound of flesh in the mirror could send you running for a comforting piece of cake. I understood how sugar could numb the pain, but I didn’t want to understand. I didn’t want to understand christy’s weakness.

  “Here,” I said desperately. “Do you want to share this piece of chocco cake?” I don’t want to eat it alone.

  “No, thanks,” she said, without even glancing at the plate. “I don’t really like chocco.”

  Of course she didn’t.

  “Yeah,” I lied. “Me neither.”

  “isabel,” I say to her now.

  She looks at me, chocco smeared all around her mouth. She grabs at the wrappers, as if she can hide it, as if I can unsee what I’ve seen. I hold her flailing hands and she pulls away, hiding her face from me. Unsure what to do, I start picking up the empty wrappers, wrapper after wrapper after wrapper. There are so many of them.

  “What are you doing, isabel?”

  “I took them from the Fatgirl buffet.”

  “Oh, really?” My voice is acerbic. “Was this after you stole from the chastities?” She doesn’t seem surprised that I know. “We saw the video footage. Everyone knows. Everyone.” I’ve got my hands tangled in my hair, pulling at the roots, nearly ready to rip it out of my head. “Why would you steal from the one fucking place in this School that still has cameras? Why, isabel? Did you want to get caught?”

  She’s motionless and her stillness composes me, easing my anger.

  “You have to get rid of it.”

  “I’ll do it later.”

  “No,” I reply. I don’t trust her to do what needs to be done. “We’ll go to the bathrooms together now.” She picks up the same black dress from the floor and pulls it over her head. “Don’t you have anything else you can wear?” I say, pointing at the melted chocco on it.

  “I only have this dress,” she says quietly, picking at the stains. “They don’t make a lot of girls’ clothes in my size.”

  We walk quickly to the bathrooms, ducking inside as I hear the approaching clatter of footsteps. The two of us cram into the bathroom stall and isabel falls to her knees. Afterward she wilts, her face resting on the plastic toilet seat, her body totally limp. I rub her back but all I want to do is to run away from her, pretend that this has nothing to do with me. I feel her need like a black hole trying to consume me. She’s going to make me weak too, even weaker than I am already. I won’t survive.

  “Why, isabel? Why are you doing this to yourself? To your body?”

  And why are you doing this to me? is the awful, selfish thought that is left unsaid.

  “Because I can,” she answers, and I shiver as she unconsciously echoes chastity-ruth.

  “But—”

  “Because it’s my body,” she cuts in. “Isn’t it?”

  Neither of us moves. The silence is heavy, weighted with fear.

  Chapter 13

  “Come on, isabel. We can’t stay here much longer.”

  It’s been at least ten minutes since she has stopped throwing up, but she just stays there, slumped over the toilet bowl.

  “The chastities will find us soon.”

  I assume the others have returned to class, although our fones keep pinging with alerts, messages we both ignore. I drag her up to a standing position. Her skin feels sticky, crusted with sweat and food crumbs.

  “Hello, girls.”

  I swing the stall door open, and it’s her.

  “What’s happening?” My voice squeaks with fear.

  “That’s none of your concern, #630.” chastity-ruth turns to isabel. “Come now, isabel,” she says almost lovingly, and a chill travels up my spine. “Come now, dear. We’ve talked about this.”

  I step in front of isabel.

  “Playtime is over, #630. Time to leave.” She points at the exit but I shake my head, refusing to go. isabel reaches out and takes my hand in hers, pull
ing me into a hug that says everything and nothing. I can see our reflection in the wall behind us, my arms wrapped around her puffy pale body as she shivers in a gray bra and underwear. She pulls away first, wincing as my bracelet catches in her hair.

  “Just go, freida,” she says. “I don’t need you.”

  “But—”

  “I said, I don’t need you here.”

  She knows me, the true me. She knows that I am just an imprint of a real person. I am nothing.

  I walk back to my room, alone.

  It’s been a week since she was taken and it’s all anyone can talk about. Where did they take her, freida? Is she coming back, freida? They refuse to believe me when I say that I know as little as they do, and so the questions keep coming. Overnight I’ve become popular again, but I don’t want it now. I didn’t appreciate how easily I could melt into the background before, wrapping a fake social face over my head like cling wrap.

  I left her there. I left her behind.

  I do not know what they have done with her. I do not know where she has gone. The scene from the bathroom plays on a constant loop in my brain as I lie in a haze of SleepSound, burning my way through my emergency stockpile, taking one half tablet from the locket around my neck, then another half, and another, returning to chastity-ruth for refills whenever I run out. For once, all I do is sleep and yet I never feel rested, every dream stealing something from me.

  “Stream TV.”

  I’m lying on my bed, flicking through channel after channel, the flashing colors blurring before my eyes.

  “Redesigning! Gone! Wrong!”

  There’s a woman lying on an operating table. She looks like an older, skinnier version of isabel. Pale blond hair, seashell cheekbones, pearly teeth.

  “Hello there!” Her voice is reed thin. “My name is natasha, I’m thirty-seven and I’ve given birth to seven sons.”

  Seven sons? That must be some kind of record. As a reward for her good behavior, her husband has been offered a free “companion vaginal redesign.” He signs a release form giving permission for natasha to be shown on TV, smiling at the cameras. The anesthetist arrives into the operating room, jams a needle into an available vein without warning and her eyes flop back into her head. The camera zooms in on the ReDesigner as he begins, his EuroCola visor holding back his sparse gray hair, and I have to watch the rest through my fingers and with my legs tightly closed. If I were a man, I’d never be able to be a Medic.

  The show cuts to natasha and the ReDesigner sitting in oversized sludgy green armchairs around a polished mahogany table laden down by cans of EuroCola. She’s crossing and uncrossing her matchstick legs, pulling at her pink crocheted skirt, her whole body shaking except for rock-hard breasts straining against a pink T-shirt. Something tells me this isn’t natasha’s first redesign.

  “Okay …” the ReDesigner pauses to adjust his glasses and peers at the computer screen in front of him, “… natalia. I’m afraid there were a few complications …”

  “Complications?”

  “Please, natalia, no need to raise your voice.”

  “natasha. My name is natasha.”

  He looks at her unsmilingly over the thin wire frames of his glasses and she cringes. “As I was saying, natasha, there were a few complications.” He beckons her to the corner of the office, gesturing at her to stand on a raised wooden block in front of a full-length mirror. He pulls her skirt up around her waist and unravels the thick bandages swaddling her like a new-design’s diaper. I blink once, twice, wondering if I am going crazy.

  “These things happen unfortunately.” The ReDesigner shrugs.

  The camera zooms in on natasha as she leans closer to the mirror, searching for something that she will never find again. A hint of forbidden tears freezes over her pale green eyes, the fine lines and wrinkles becoming more pronounced as her face crumples with the effort to control her emotions. I turn it off. She’s thirty-seven, I tell myself. Thirty-seven. She is only three years away from her Termination Date anyway.

  “freida.”

  chastity-magdalena frowns as she takes in the debris of clothes and shoes strewn around my cubicle. I turn away from her, closing my eyes like a child playing Hide and Seek, hoping to make her disappear.

  “I’m not going away until we’ve spoken,” she says, and I blink at her reflection in the mirror behind me. Watching, watchers, watched. We’re all watching each other.

  “You look tired, freida.”

  “That sounds like something megan would say.”

  “Certain aesthetic standards must be upheld.”

  “And that sounds like something chastity-ruth would say.” I draw my knees toward my chest and tuck my face in between them. “And anyway, it’s Sunday. Surely I’m allowed to relax on the weekends.”

  The bed sags as she sits next to me, her cool hand on my left shoulder, pulling gently. Is this what the younger wave of chastities will be like, all touching and gentleness? Will agyness find herself giving out hugs next year, embracing iman or lena-rose as if she’s their mother? chastity-magdalena is staring at my reflection in the wall, just another image of myself, one more image out of thousands and thousands that I’ve been presented with during my life, told this image is real, now this is real, no, this one and this one and this one. I’m constantly trying to match all the thoughts in my head with these images in front of me, trying to put all the pieces of myself back together until I’m complete, until I can feel whole.

  The body in the mirror is thin, so thin you can see her ribs through her dirty tank top. Her hair is in a matted ponytail, dark circles under sunken eyes that look as if they have been smudged in with charcoal. That’s me, that’s me, that’s me. And a chastity has her hand on me, touching me, as if she’s my mother, as if she likes me, as if I’m worthy of being liked.

  Something breaks inside me and I am bent over with the cruelty of this grief, a grief so strong I don’t even know who or what it is for. Tearless sobs rack my body for a few seconds until I breathe in deeply, swallowing the feelings back down to their prison inside me.

  “Sorry.” I slam the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. “I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t.”

  “When did you last wash?”

  “Friday.”

  “You’ve had meals looking like this?” she says in dismay.

  “No. I haven’t left my room all weekend.”

  “Attendance at all meals and classes is mandatory unless you’re ill. Have you been ill? Should you be back in the Sick Bay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m just not hungry.”

  “Have you spoken with chastity-anne? How have you been getting your meds?”

  “I have a stockpile of SleepSound. chastity-ruth gave extra supplies to me after I fainted in the Nutrition Center.”

  “What?” Her high-pitched yelp frightens me out of my dreamy state. “But SleepSound is supposed to be carefully monitored at all times.” She jumps to her feet, as if to leave and confront chastity-ruth right away.

  “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.” She can’t take my meds away. She can’t. “I’m tired. I’m talking nonsense. What I meant to say was chastity-anne brings me my SleepSound at night, and if I’m still having difficulty sleeping I ask whichever chastity is on night duty if I can be prescribed another dose. It’s all very safe.” She doesn’t look convinced. “You’ve done it yourself, remember?”

  She ignores this. “chastity-ruth knows you’ve been in your bedroom, alone, all weekend? And she hasn’t insisted that you attend meals or Organized Recreation?”

  “Maybe they want to keep me away from the rest of the eves, for fear I might contaminate them.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Why is it silly? Look what happened to isabel.”

  “Believe me, you have nothing to do with isabel’s problems.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing.” A smoothness melts over her face until she resembles all the other chastities so pre
cisely it’s eerie. “I know what happened with isabel is challenging for you,” she says, ignoring my snort, “but I promise you she’s safe.”

  “Where is she? She’s not gone …” my breath catches and I whisper, “Underground, has she?”

  Once they take you there, there’s no coming back.

  “No, of course not.” chastity-magdalena is aghast at the mention of the word. “They’re going to fix her up. She will be as good as new when you see her again.”

  Like she’s a doll that needs her face repainted.

  “Please, freida, don’t worry. Certain people are too invested in isabel to allow her just to self-immolate.”

  “What people? What are you talking about?”

  “Stop.” Her mouth is set in a determined line and I can tell there’s no point in pushing it further. “You know she’s safe. You don’t need to know anything else.”

  What did I think was going to happen? That we were going to build a fort with my bedding and tell each other secrets? For all of her attempts to be the “nice” one, she’s still a chastity. She reaches out her hand to pat me again but I move away, glaring at her.

  “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want.”

  “I don’t want anything from you,” I lie again.

  “isabel won’t be happy when she returns to find you’ve fallen to pieces in her absence. You’re absolutely emaciated.”

  “I doubt she’ll care. But thanks.”

  “It’s not a compliment,” she says in exasperation. “You need to shower, change your clothes and you need to start on a weight-restoration plan.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I don’t care whether or not you’re hungry, freida. If you don’t eat, you’re going to die. And more importantly, men don’t find skinny women attractive. The target weights have been specifically set for that reason.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Don’t ‘whatever’ me. The Inheritants will be here next week. I doubt any of them will choose a walking skeleton as their companion.”

  “I thought we weren’t to know when the Inheritants were coming. Aren’t you ruining the element of surprise, chastity-magdalena?” I taunt her, frustrated that she would tell me this but refuse to give me any concrete information about isabel. “Anyway, I don’t care about stupid boys.”