It was a late night in early May when Reed wandered into the gym at the heart of the complex. The room was unusually empty for that time of day—only two games of volleyball and a single basketball match with a few fans on the sidelines. The hollow thumps of pounding balls and the squeak of shoes on wood echoed through rows of empty bleachers. Reed stopped in the wide, double doorway and surveyed his options. None of the games promised to end any time soon. He took another short glance around and turned to leave. But, as he did, he came face to face with someone coming up behind him from the water fountain in the hall. It was Alec.
“Reed!” he exclaimed, his face lighting up with a delighted grin. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in forever!”
“Oh, around,” Reed answered vaguely. He fished in his pocket for something that wasn’t there. “Just… really busy.”
“Well, if you’re not now, why don’t you come in and play a game or two?” Alec invited, drying his hands on the thighs of his black soccer shorts. “Everybody’s here.”
Reed looked out over the court. Sure enough, one of the far volleyball teams was made up entirely of the teens from the group. Lucy, Nathan, Gabe, and the rest were too engrossed in a play to notice the pair by the door. Cody went up for a spike that flattened the other team’s defense.
“I’ll pass.” Reed kept his eyes on the game. “Why aren’t you playing?”
“I am. I just rotated out and stopped for a drink. Oh, come on! We could use another player.” Alec took his arm insistently.
“No!” Reed jerked back. “I can’t. It would be… awkward.”
Alec searched his face. “Reed, if this is about the whole Gabe thing, I told you, forget about it.”
“Even if I could, he wouldn’t, and you know it. I’m not going back to that. Listen, I really have to go. I’ve got something set up in five minutes.”
It was rude, and Reed knew it. Alec stepped back at the rebuff, but there was no anger in his bright eyes, only a sad understanding.
“I see,” he said quietly. “Reed, you can’t hide from it that way. Having fun and getting mixed up in stuff won’t help what you’re feeling. It’ll probably just make it worse. There’s only one real way to deal with it.”
“I’ve gotta go.” Reed turned and fled down the hall.
The incident threw him into a deep dejection for the rest of the night. Seeing all his friends again, together and happy, stabbed him with a blade of mixed emotions. That familiar sensation of looking in through a closed window was back. This time, it was flavored with the hopeless and bitter taste of a shameful exile. He understood now a little of what had drawn him toward these people from the beginning. Never had they seemed so pure, so clear, and so out of reach. It was like looking toward the stars with his feet chained to the ground.
As if that weren’t bad enough, seeing Alec again affected him strangely. Everything wild and crazy he’d done recently leaped into his mind when his eyes met Alec’s. But it wasn’t Alec accusing him; it was himself. It gave him a peculiar feeling that tightened his chest and made him bite his lip. He wished he hadn’t seen Alec at all.
* * *
A day or two after the encounter, Reed still hadn’t been able to shake his gloomy attitude. He trudged up the dorm stairs to his room after work. He was later getting back to the Dorms than usual, and he found the hall empty and silent. Everyone had come and gone, either down to supper or straight to the rec center. That was disappointing. He had hoped for a social evening to lift his spirits.
He shut the door to his room behind him, leaning his back against it, and ran his eyes lethargically over everything. Reagan’s computer blinked a slow blue light on the desk. Riley’s phone was charging by the window. A poster lay on the nightstand; he’d been planning to put it above his bed. None of it interested him.
What was wrong with him? He crossed the room to the window and leaned his forehead against the pane, staring out at the scene below drenched in late afternoon sun. All his old hobbies seemed dull tonight; nothing caught his interest. He straightened and shook himself. This was ridiculous. He had to stop moping. Everybody else would be at the rec center. He would go for a swim.
Kicking off his shoes, he began digging for his board shorts. Hanging around the pool never failed to perk him up. That was where Reagan spent most of his time now. He said the atmosphere and the sand volleyball made him think of the Florida beaches. Reed smiled. It was also the place where Reagan could best show off for the girls. Reed retrieved his cyan Hurley suit and pulled off his shirt, pausing to eye his muscles in the mirror over the sink.
Yeah, this’ll definitely do it.
A few minutes later, Reed clattered down the stairs with a towel flung over his shoulder. He pushed out of the dorm’s back door, his bare feet savoring the pleasant grit of the warm, dry concrete. But, as he neared the enormous complex, he began to doubt his plan. He didn’t feel the growing excitement he’d expected.
He swiped his card and pushed through the glass door into the pool area. It was a gigantic room, almost too big to be called a room at all. The lofty, bubbled ceiling arched over the huge concrete patio and Olympic-size pool. On the far side, beneath a couple of fake palm trees, a two-story pyramid of fiberglass rock formed a hissing waterfall and slide, dotted with artificial ferns and mosses. The entire right wall was glass, opening onto the sand volleyball courts outside.
The pool was full. Teenagers churned the water with their constant diving, kicking, and splashing. The “shore” was even more crowded for, as Reagan said, there was a certain “beachy” atmosphere about the place. Reed moved away from the door and deeper into the crowd, looking around him. Here he was, right in the middle of it all, and he felt no different.
This couldn’t be happening. The pool never failed to rouse and excite him. There must be something here to shake him out his melancholy. He ran his eyes over the busy area, and then, through the shifting crowd, he saw it.
On the left side of the room against the white cinderblock wall was a set of chrome bleachers overlooking the water. Reagan was sitting on the back row. He wore only a suit he often boasted of bringing from Florida—small, red, tailored. For all practical purposes, it wasn’t much of anything at all. But he didn’t seem to care; he was too caught up in his companion. A girl, known to the entire Hill for her beauty and her habit of flaunting it, lay across his lap with her arms around his neck as she leaned up to lock her lips with his. As Reed caught sight of the pair, she broke away and whispered something into Reagan’s ear, running her hands up through the back of his hair. Whatever it was, he loved it. He threw back his head and began to laugh, long and loud.
A wave of unexpected revulsion swept through Reed. The sight was nothing new for him but, this time, it was as though a veil had fallen from his eyes. He saw past the steamy surface to what was actually happening. This, right in front of him, was Reagan’s idea of happiness: quick, casual, and temporary. But it was his only idea of happiness and, in a day or two, it would be over. They would go their separate ways, looking for something new to give them their next buzz. And they would do it again and again, because they didn’t have any other way to meet this need. This was exactly what Reed had been working toward since he arrived on the Hill; it was two young people so deep into temporary pleasure that they could forget the past, ignore the future, and tune out what was happening around them.
Reed turned away from the sight, a sick feeling in his stomach, but he couldn’t escape it. Not only was it etched indelibly in his memory, but it was all around him. His eyes were opened to see the crowd as it was—scantily dressed boys and girls mixed together in an erotic setting, each doing whatever they pleased. It wasn’t just at the pool, either; that’s all the Hill was. It was a culture of teens doing whatever they wanted, trying to drown out everything else, because that’s what made them happy. Reagan wasn’t the exception; he was the norm. And this was what Reed had built his life around for months. Alec was right; it wouldn’t help
him. It never had, and it never would.
Slowly, Reed made his way to the door and pushed out without looking back. He didn’t want to swim anymore. He turned his steps back toward his dorm to change. If he hadn’t known what to do before, he certainly didn’t now.
Chapter 30
Once he was dressed, Reed wandered back outside. He passed through the Dorms listlessly and ended up on the sidewalk that ran down toward the city. He didn’t care where he went; there was a more important issue. For months, the Dorms and their culture had been what he lived and breathed. He had let it dictate what he did and define who he was. Then, in one day, one moment, it had evaporated under his feet. He felt lost. And he didn’t even know why it had happened.
What’s going on? Where did this come from?
He couldn’t answer his own questions.
He walked with his hands in his pockets, eyes on the ground, paying no attention to where he went. Caught up in his inner mayhem, he wound his way through the maze of Hill apartments without caring that he didn’t know his way. He ignored his surroundings until he almost ran into a bench. With nothing else to do, he sat down on it and put his elbows on his knees, weary, though not from his walk. He could go no farther. He didn’t care that someone else was already on the bench. Really, he didn’t even notice.
“Are you okay?”
Reed jerked his head up in surprise; the voice was familiar. Snapping out of his mental haze, he found a pair of very concerned, very blue eyes on him. “Oh, Elijah.” He looked down again. “Where’d you come from?”
“I was just sitting here when you wandered up; I’m out here a lot in the evenings. But you don’t look yourself. Are you all right?”
The memory of the night in the woods and his unwarranted disgrace swept through Reed’s mind. He had been avoiding these people; perhaps he should leave. But suddenly, he didn’t care. All his stubbornness and emotions gave way, and he buried his face in his hands. “No,” he answered, “I’m not.”
Elijah was quiet. After a few deep breaths, Reed looked up again. “I don’t even know where to start. There’s today and Reagan and me and you and Allie and everything else. I don’t know about any of it!”
Elijah looked at him thoughtfully. “So Reagan told you to date her because she makes you happy?”
Reed blinked. “How did you know?”
“I lived with him for months. Trust me, we had a lot of… chats.”
That sounded familiar. Reed nodded and dropped his head again. “Yeah, he told me what he thinks, but that didn’t really help. Now I don’t know who to believe, especially after what he said about you.”
“I see.”
That was all. Reed waited for Elijah to ask what he meant and, when he didn’t, Reed volunteered it. “He told me you were really judgmental to him and Riley, and you preached at them all the time because everything had to be your way. Why did you do that?” This was a question that irked him. Something didn’t add up.
Elijah was silent for a moment, staring out at the view. Their bench commanded the view of an entire park, laid out on gentle slopes before them. Except for a jogger or two on the trails and a pair of tennis players on the far-away courts, it was deserted. The lonely trees soaked up golden rays as the sun set above the city below, and a few cicadas sang lazily, echoing each other in the warm evening stillness.
Elijah finally spoke. “I’m not surprised he would say that.” He sighed. “So you want to know why I did all that? Well, I actually didn’t. He says I preached at him, but I never did. I only answered the questions he asked, even when they were rude and meant to mock me. He couldn’t get over the fact that I disagreed with him. He accused me of being a hater and a legalist, trying to stop everybody else from enjoying life. He took all my answers as personal criticisms that targeted his character, which wasn’t it at all.”
Elijah took his hand off the back of the bench and slowly rubbed it back and forth on his knee. “See, Reagan’s the type that loves doing his own thing in life and, if you don’t agree with it, he takes that as something against him. People are like that, especially when they’re doing things they shouldn’t be. They don’t want tolerance; they want unconditional agreement and acceptance. Did I hate him? Never. I loved Reagan, and I still do. I just didn’t like the things he was doing.”
Reed kept his eyes fixed in the distance, listening as Elijah continued. “You know what I’m talking about: the girls. It was mild at first, but it got worse as he got more popular. I knew what was going on, and I tried to stay out of it. I finally had to put my foot down when he started trying to sneak them into our room, sometimes several in one night. That didn’t stop him, though.” He hesitated. “He just sneaked into their rooms instead.”
Reed said nothing. Elijah went on. “Riley—he’s a different story. You live with him; I’m sure you know what I mean. He was very private about it when he first moved to the Hill, but he got comfortable quickly when he saw how tolerant the culture was. After he officially came out, he got bolder and even a little hostile. I just wish he’d given me a chance. Instead, he assumed I would be cruel to him because of my faith, so he refused to even talk to me about it. He had a lot of anger built up from his past, and I got the brunt of it. I could handle it, though, all of it—the way both of them treated me, acted around me, talked about me. I could put up with a lot of the other stuff they did, too, but I couldn’t live in the same room with them if it was going to ruin our relationship. If we couldn’t talk about our differences like adults and establish mutual respect, we would all end up angry, frustrated, and bitter.”
“That’s why you left,” said Reed softly.
Elijah nodded. “It is. I don’t know if it’s still like that, but you can imagine.”
Reed looked down. “Yeah, I can. I’ve seen it all, and… I liked it, too.” He kept his eyes fixed on the ground. “But it’s different now. I always agreed with Reagan ’cause I liked the way he did life, but then I saw something today and, I don’t know why, but…”
He poured out the story of the scene at the pool and his inexplicable reaction. “And I don’t know what’s come over me!” he finished. “That was nothing compared to other things that go on all the time. They’ve never bothered me before. Why are they so strange to me now?”
Elijah was leaning forward, elbows on his knees and hands together, listening and staring into the west. He didn’t answer right away. He seemed to collect his thoughts and choose his words carefully. “Reed, I think there’s more going on here than you’d believe.” He tapped his thumbs together. “You said you’d felt listless and confused all day, right? There’s something to that. Do you think it could all be traced back to the shooting?”
Reed thought. True, that had shaken him badly at first, but he had gotten over it… or had he? He shrugged. “I don’t know. Why?”
“Because big things like that usually have a deeper effect on us than we realize. What if that shock and trauma set you up for this? Perhaps it was meant to bring you to this point.”
Reed realized, the shooting marked the day when something had changed. He had never been able to truly go back to his carefree mindset afterwards. There was doubt now. He had seen that, despite everything, the system was frail like Elijah said. Perhaps it had been… wait.
“Bring me to this point? What do you mean?”
Elijah turned and looked at him steadily. “Reed, the Hill is a materialized delusion and nothing more. Like I tried to tell you before, it’s fake. The whole thing is a fantasy world built on being young and all the things that go with that. Being our age is wonderful, but it’s temporary. The Hill is an attempt to make it last longer than it’s supposed to, and it’s doomed to failure. It’s so unrealistic that, when real life hits, it’ll all come crashing down.”
Reed wasn’t sure what to think about that. “So what’s that got to do with what we were talking about?”
“The shooting showed you that. It was like you and everybody else got a horrible s
lap in the face from reality. You have to see now that the system’s not strong enough. You can’t wrap your life around it like they tell you to. A crisis could turn it all to dust in a second. You’ve been called out, Reed—warned, before it’s too late.”
“Too late? What do you mean? Nothing’s happened.”
“No, not yet. But anybody can see it’s getting close. The government has built itself into a huge complex set up on empty credit and promises. It can’t last forever, and when it gives out, the Organization will vaporize. Then what’ll happen to the Hill? The shooting had a purpose: it was the last warning to get off the sinking ship and onto something better before it’s too late.”
“Whoa.” Reed held up his hands. “The shooting was on purpose to get me into ‘something better?’ On purpose? Something better? You mean your God.” His voice rose in anger. “So your God allowed sixty-seven kids to get mown down by a maniac on purpose? Some God! Did it ever occur to Him that those were my friends? Did He ever think it would hurt people?”
Elijah’s voice never changed from its kind, soft tone. “Reed, God was just as heartbroken about what happened as anyone. He didn’t want it to be that way. Why didn’t He stop it? Nobody knows the mind of God, but I do know one thing. God can take the horrible and heartbreaking and draw something good—even beautiful—out of it. Pain can be His best tool.”
“Pain!” Reed shot out bitterly. “What would you know about that? Do you know what I grew up with? My parents divorced when I was eight. They didn’t care how me or my sister felt; they just did it. My dad got custody of me, but my mom tried to take my sister so Dad couldn’t have both of us. They dragged us through court for months before Mom finally got her way, and they split us up. I lived with Dad in L.A., but he didn’t care about me. I was just a pawn for him to use against Mom. He was too busy with the girlfriends he brought to live with us. I hated every one of them. He hardly paid me any attention, ever. I grew up on my own. My soccer coach taught me how to shave.”
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