Awaken

by Katie Kacvinsky

  A wave of nausea came over me as I stood there, overstimulated for the second time tonight. What a forced lifestyle our technology, our inventions imposed on our lives when we tried to live synonymously with computers; when we stepped inside their world, we left the natural one behind.

  I felt my legs start to buckle.

  “I need to get out of here,” I heard myself say in a strangled voice, like I wanted someone to wake me up out of a nightmare.

  I leaned on Justin and he helped me to a bench against the wall in the lobby. I was waiting for him to force me back into the room, to tell me he knew what was best for me. People always loved to tell me that.

  He surprised me when he opened my purse and took my phone out. He handed it to me and told me to message my mom.

  “Tell her you’re going home,” he said. “I’ll drop you off.”

  I stared down at the phone. “I don’t want to go home.” I looked up at him and pleaded with my eyes. I didn’t want to be alone.

  “Will you stay with me?” I asked. It was strange saying the words because it wasn’t strange. I was starting to believe Justin knew me better than anyone, even my own parents. He didn’t try to see what he hoped was there. He just saw me. And slowly, I was starting to throw back that thick curtain that censored myself from the rest of the world. He told me that he wouldn’t be a good friend for me, so why did I feel like he was the best one I had?

  He nodded and motioned for me to follow him.

  “Come on,” he said. “I think I know what will help.”

  Chapter Eight

  I followed him outside to his car parked down the block. We were both silent while we drove down the desolate streets, and I concentrated on the soft sprinkle of rain hitting the windshield. My thoughts were shooting and firing in my mind so quickly it felt like there was a war going on in my head. I watched the windshield wipers swipe the glass clean and for a moment the world was clear again, but in the next second it muddled in a blur, like eyes brimming with tears. We pulled up to the side of an apartment building. The bottom floor had three large windows and they were all showered with light. There were no signs outside to advertise what the space was, but Justin pulled the front door open and we were greeted with a chime.

  We walked inside a restaurant that was long and narrow, the walls painted a dark blueberry color. A white counter stretched along one side of the café and red leather upholstered booths lined the other. Behind the counter was a coffee machine and stacks of cups and plates. There was a glass cooler filled with pies and desserts. A young couple sat at one of the tables, artsy-looking types with scarves and slouching knit hats, leaning into each other and whispering. A man in a wool jacket and jeans sat on a stool at the counter and I noticed he was reading a paper book, like my mom gave me. It smelled like coffee inside and something so sweet it was making my mouth water. A woman sauntered over to greet us, wearing an old waitress uniform I used to see in movies—a white dress that buttoned up the front with pink trim at the collar.

  “Justin,” she said in a voice that sounded worn and scratchy. She had tan skin and teeth that looked stained from drinking too much coffee, but her smile was warm. Her pink lipstick matched the trim of her dress.

  “Good to see you,” she said. Justin ducked down to hug her. She had to stand on her toes to reach him.

  She turned to study me. “Who’s this?”

  “Madeline,” I told her, and found that saying my name wasn’t so strange. It actually felt nice to hear it.

  “Irene,” she said with a nod, and we followed her to a booth next to one of the windows. She asked Justin if he’d be having his regular. He nodded and ordered two cups of coffee.

  It was warm inside, so I took Justin’s coat off and laid it on the booth cushion next to me. I gathered my skirt together and sat down, surprised that I didn’t feel embarrassed to be so overdressed. I looked around the small space and it was exactly what I was craving. Quiet. Relaxed. Soft lighting. No digital screens or advertisements. The only background noise, other than voices, was some music filtering through a speaker by the register. It sounded like jazz.

  Justin told me they didn’t have menus. They only served homemade desserts and coffee.

  “How do they stay in business?” I asked.

  “People don’t run these kinds of places to make a profit. Irene’s had this place as long as I can remember. She does it because she likes being around people.”

  “What did you order?” I asked.

  “You’ll see,” he told me. “Believe me, it will change your world.”

  I stared back at him, at his messy hair, sprinkled with mist. I wanted to tell him I didn’t need dessert for him to change my world. His presence did that already.

  Irene came back with two cups of coffee and a tin full of cream. She set them down, followed by a single plate, taken up by a giant slice of triple-layer chocolate cake. Between each layer and slathered on top was a heap of whipped chocolate frosting. I licked my lips at the sight of it and looked up at Justin.

  “Feeling better yet?” he asked with a small grin.

  Instead of answering him, I grabbed my fork and dug in. The fluffy chocolate melted in my mouth and I washed it down with hot coffee. I decided this was the best medicine for a mood shift money could buy. Present company included.

  I glanced up to find Justin watching me, but his eyes were distracted. He reached his hand across the table and just as he did this I noticed my hair was dangling over my shoulder and brushing the rim of my coffee cup. I moved to sweep it away just as Justin was about to do the same thing and I ended up grabbing his fingers in mine for an awkward second. He quickly pulled his hand away as if my skin stung his hand.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Your hair was getting in your coffee.”

  I pushed my hair behind my back and mumbled thanks. I could feel a blush setting in. I took another bite of chocolate cake, careful to stay on my side of the slice.

  “It’s a little depressing to know this always existed and I just discovered it,” I told him while I savored a bite of frosting.

  “At least you discovered it.”

  I took a drink of the hot coffee and looked out the window, at the rain hitting the glass like fingers lightly tapping. “It makes me feel sorry for my parents.”

  Justin shook his head. “Don’t. They wouldn’t respond to it like you do. They’d feel just as uncomfortable in this world as you feel in theirs.”

  I told Justin that my mom wouldn’t.

  He licked the frosting off the back of his fork and asked me what I meant. I had to force myself to focus.

  “My mom and dad are polar opposites,” I explained. “My mom practically encourages me to fight DS, but then my dad freaks out if I even question it. It’s like they’re playing tug of war with my mind. I don’t know who to listen to half the time.”

  He shrugged. “You don’t have to choose sides,” he said. “Make up your own mind and believe that.”

  We finished the cake but there were a few crumbs scattered on the plate that I dabbed up with my finger. I swept up the last smear of frosting because it was too good to waste.

  I told Justin my mom stopped making homemade food when I was little. Now you can order all your meals premade and prepackaged and they come shipped to your house every week. I described our kitchen, how our refrigerator was neatly organized with bags of chopped fruit and vegetables, trays of salads, and bottles of floats and fruit drinks. Our freezer was stocked with labeled casseroles, pastas, pizzas, and soups ready to heat up. Our cabinets were full of air-tight sandwiches, snack bars, and vitamins.

  Irene stopped to refill our coffees and clear the empty plate.

  “I can officially say it now,” I said. “I’ve been deprived.”

  “That’s what I don’t get,” Justin said. “People look at eating like it’s an inconvenience. Like our lives are too busy and important to bother with feeding ourselves. But we’re human. Our bodies were designed to enjoy food.”
He set down his coffee mug and fixed his eyes on me. “Did you know there are over ten thousand taste buds on your tongue? Ten thousand. And taste is the weakest of our five senses.”

  I pushed my tongue against the back of my teeth as he said this. I could still taste the chocolate.

  “And our hands,” he continued. He reached across the table and grabbed one of my hands in his larger one. I stared down at our hands and felt my skin heat up under his touch.

  He flipped my hand over gently so my palm was facing up. I wondered where he was going with this, but I could tell from the look on his face he wasn’t flirting. His eyes were serious. He was proving a point.

  He rubbed his fingertips over mine and slowly added pressure. “Our fingers have thousands of nerve endings. They’re one of the most sensitive parts of our bodies. And what do we do with them all day? What do we touch?”

  I thought my heart was going to explode it was beating so fast. I looked back at him and managed to shrug my shoulders.

  “We push buttons,” he said. “That’s it. We click and press buttons. And that’s supposed to be satisfying? Aren’t we designed for something a little more authentic than that?”

  He pressed his fingers against mine before he pulled his hand back. I looked down at my hand and tried to bend my fingers. Every nerve ending was standing on edge like they were all reaching out, craving more. I took a deep breath and cleared my throat.

  “You said earlier you had a few questions for me,” he told me. His eyes were dark on mine. His hands were off of the table, probably a good thing or I might have grabbed for his fingers again.

  “Tell me about your parents,” I said.

  I noticed his mouth tighten. “What do you want to know?”

  “Do you live with them?” I asked. He shook his head.

  “I’m never settled anywhere very long. When I’m in Corvallis I stay with Jake’s family.”

  “How long has that been going on?” I asked.

  I could hear his foot tapping underneath the table. “A while. My parents were relocated,” he offered. His voice was steady. Unreadable. He said the word relocated like it was a business decision.

  “Did they move?” I expected Justin to hesitate, but he answered immediately, as if he saw the question coming.

  “No, they were arrested. And they’re never allowed back in the state.” Justin paused as if he was considering whether to keep going. His eyes took a turn around the room before they met mine again. “They live in California now, along the coast. There’s a growing community there, of people that are abandoning some of the modern ways of life and are adopting older traditions like growing their own food and living with technology, not through it. They’re trying to form face-to-face classes again.”

  I had heard of the place he was referring to. My father mentioned it sourly in conversation—a pocket of people who “fought” the system were relocated to a community in California. There were dozens of names for it, Trashtown, UC Slums, Berkinstocks, but some people referred to it as Eden. I also knew it wasn’t open to the general public and it wasn’t a place you would choose to visit. You were usually banished to the area.

  “What happened?”

  He grinned and I saw something in his eyes, something I saw in my dad’s eyes sometimes when he bragged about my grades or how hard my mom worked at charity events. Pride.

  “They tried to shake things up,” he said.

  I waited for him to continue.

  “They helped lead the Digital Riot about twelve years ago. Then they fought the ID Scan laws. You remember, right? Hundreds of people were killed in D.C. for storming the Capitol.”

  I remembered, even though I was little. That year the government was trying to mandate a law that every person in the country be paired with an ID bar code that would be imbedded in their skin. The number would be used for all transactions, purchases, IDs, and to register on any websites. It would replace licenses, passports, social security numbers, birth certificates, student IDs—the system would make a person’s identity no longer an address or picture or even a name.

  What really crossed the line for protesters is when the government pointed out the advantages for parents to have the code implanted in their children’s skin. Not only was it a way to have information accessible at any time, it was also a tracking device. Parents could always find their child by tracking them online like a radar. But, as protesters argued, so could the government, so could anyone. It was one more way to lose our freedom. Rioters stormed D.C. to fight the issue and hundreds were killed in the stampede when a bomb erupted in the middle of the mob.

  “Your parents helped organize that?”

  He nodded. “And luckily their effort paid off, since it never became a law. It took that many lives to prove a point.”

  I asked Justin where he was living during all of this.

  “All over,” he said, “but I spent most of the time crashing at Jake’s. His parents are my godparents. I’ve lived with the Solvis off and on my whole life. Sort of like joint custody.”

  I frowned at this. “It must have been hard to grow up hardly ever seeing your parents.”

  He shook his head. “It wasn’t,” he said with sincerity in his voice. “I’m prouder of them than anyone. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”

  “You say that now, but did you feel that way when you were young? When it was the holidays or your birthday and they were in jail?”

  He smiled slightly. “I’ve been brought up to always put other people before myself. You can make a lot more of a difference when you focus your energy on other people instead of yourself.”

  I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “How long were your parents in jail?”

  “The first time? About two years.”

  I gave him an apologetic nod but it only made his eyes harden.

  “My parents are the bravest people I’ve ever known,” he said. “They’ve taught me everything I believe in. So many people are full of talk, Maddie. But nothing happens unless someone steps up and takes action. That’s what my parents taught me.”

  “Do you ever see them?”

  He nodded. “I visit when I can.”

  “So, where do you call home?” All my life, all I’ve known is my home. Four walls and a ceiling and this island of security.

  He tapped his fingers on the table and told me he never thought about this. “Some people say home is where you come from. But I think it’s a place you need to find, like it’s scattered and you pick pieces of it up along the way.”

  I shook my head.

  “What?” Justin watched me with interest.

  “I’ve just never thought of a lifestyle like that.”

  He lifted his shoulder. “You were brought up to think love and family is about protection. Like you need to hold people close in order to care about them. But that’s just living inside a bubble. It’s control. I was brought up to think love is trusting people enough to let them go. Like you can expand your family and your feelings and carry them anywhere.”

  I let his words soak through my pores and into my brain, where I wanted to store them away in a compartment where they would always be safe, so I could go back for them whenever I wanted.

  “You never thought your parents were being selfish?” I asked.

  He wrinkled his forehead. “For what?”

  “For putting rioting before being good parents to you?”

  “They have been wonderful parents to me.”

  I disagreed. “Really? Where are they? Banished? How often do you see them?” I couldn’t fight the animosity rising in my chest. I didn’t care if his parents cured cancer and secured world peace. They still should have been more involved in his life.

  Justin took a deep breath and slowed down his words. “It’s because of the selflessness of people like my parents that we’re sitting here right now without a radar machine picking up on a bar code embedded in our skin.” He paused and leaned closer to me. “It�
��s because people like my parents put their words into action that we saw those musicians tonight, that this world has any happiness left in it. And if it means a little sacrifice, that I can only see them a few times a year, I think that’s fair. They want a better life for me, and they’re fighting for it. I think that’s the greatest thing a parent can do.”

  I looked down and folded my hands in my lap. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know it’s none of my business. But you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met and it’s just sad that your parents don’t get to see that.”

  Justin sat up straighter, clearly surprised by this. I felt my face heat up. Where is the delete button when you need it?

  I stared down at my lap, trying to think of some way to change the subject.

  “There’s one more thing you should know,” Justin said. “About five years ago my parents were involved with a group of protesters that were trying to locate the DS radio towers.”

  My fingers tightened around each other and I refused to meet his gaze. I knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “What happened?” I bluffed.

  I could feel him studying me. “Their plan was to disrupt the signal for one hour and broadcast a national public announcement about fighting digital school. But my parents were tracked and arrested before it was ever organized. Then a year later, another group of rioters got the information, except their mission was a little less subtle. They bombed a tower in Portland that shut down the DS signal for the entire state.”

  I nodded slowly and he continued.

  “It took so long to get the signal back, people were considering forming face-to-face schools again. It was the strongest impact anyone’s had on trying to fight DS since it was started.”

  Of course I remembered. For two weeks, the entire state lost access to DS. Meanwhile, my life had nearly ended and my father was being investigated by the FBI for being a possible terrorist.