23
I have heard that some people have their entire lives flash before their eyes right before they die, but this is not what happens to me. Oddly enough, when I squeeze my eyes shut, Mai’s face appears, and she smiles softly as if telling me that everything will be okay. I believe her.
With a crash, my feet hit a hard surface. Knifelike pain radiates up my legs. When I open my eyes, I see that I’ve landed on a ledge. It wasn’t the ledge I was waiting for—this one is farther down—but it’s a ledge. I hunch down and bring my clenched fists to my mouth, hyperventilating. I’m not going to die; I’m going to live. My mouth is dry, and my belly feels like it has been filled with gasoline and set on fire.
“Are you okay?” Arthor bellows from above.
“Yes,” I say, my voice trembling as much as my hands. Focus, Heidi, focus. There’s no time to sit here and cry. I need to continue on before this ledge vanishes, too. Locating the next one, I jump onto it. Still thoroughly shaken, I slowly make my way upward. Step by step, I continue on, and the farther up I get, the more confident I feel that I’ll make it. As I ascend, the steps grow smaller, like Arthor said, and when I finally come to the last few ledges, they’re so tiny that the balls of my feet barely fit. Fortunately, they’re very close together, so I can easily get from one to the next. Stepping onto the last ledge, Arthor reaches his arm out to me and helps me up to the top of the cliff—a flat, square surface void of any vegetation.
Unable to contain my emotions, tears spring out of my eyes and run down my cheeks. I collapse into Arthor’s arms, and there’s nothing I can do to stop my emotions from coming out in loud, ugly sobs.
Once I have calmed myself, I pull away and brush the wetness from my cheeks. Glowering at Arthor, I shove him in the chest so hard that he falls down.
“What was that for?” he asks.
“You took advantage of me down there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Please—you went first and left me there to die.”
“But you nodded toward me. I thought you meant for me to go first.”
I think back to our exchange down there. “That’s ridiculous. I didn’t say anything. Besides, if you were a true friend, you’d at least offer to let me go first.”
“So what you said when we were sitting in the lake…?”
I open my mouth to speak, but I have nothing to say. Remembering how I actually had said that I would help him if he needed it, I feel like a jerk. “Fine, whatever.” Not wanting to remain on the subject, I step past him and walk to the other side of the cliff, stopping about ten feet away from the drop-off. Behind me is the lake; in front of me is the ocean. I don’t dare to look over the edge yet, but from where I’m standing, it looks to be way higher than two hundred feet.
Now that the fog has lifted, I see how the sun hangs low in the sky, hovering right above the surface of the ocean. The sky is a deep blue, the water below black, and the horizon golden. According to my father, the sun never sets during the summer in the northernmost countries. I never actually believed him until now. Looking to the right, I see a sign and read what it says.
To complete Round 1 of the Savage Run program, jump off the cliff and into the water below.
I thought I’d feel like a champion completing all three rounds in the first phase, but now all I can think about is that I have two more grueling phases to complete.
“Will you take a moment with me?” Arthor sits down on the ground, reaches his hands behind his head, and looks up into the sky.
His suggestion takes me completely off guard, and I wonder what he’s really suggesting here. And besides, how can he be so casual about what happened? He didn’t even apologize for leaving me behind or thank me for risking my life for him. I at least thanked him when he helped me. Doesn’t he know that I nearly died and that he was partially to blame for it?
Too tired to argue with him, I lie down and glare up at the sky.
“I have something I’ve always wanted to tell you,” he says. “I feel like I could tell you anything.”
I hold my breath. Oh, no. I hope he’s not going to tell me he loves me or something. But then I catch myself—what a ridiculous thought. If he cared about me in that way, or in any way really, he wouldn’t have abandoned me the way he did—all too eagerly. Even if he did think I gave him the nod to go ahead.
“But if I tell you this one thing, will you share something with me, too?”
I hate confessions. Especially when they’re forced out of me. I mean, I just completed three rounds of grueling obstacles—more like torture—and he wants to talk about secrets?
“Your deepest, darkest secret.” He smiles at me.
Arthor must think he’s going to die in this next leap and that is why he wants to get something off his chest. I look at him, his face pasty gray, his lips dry and colorless. My chest aches for him. I look around to make sure none of the drones are filming before I say, “Okay, I’ll do it.” To my surprise, it takes me only a second to know exactly what I need to share. Something that’s been on my mind for years. Something I’ve never been able to speak out loud, not even to Gemma. And maybe, just maybe, it might help lighten the burden I’ve been carrying for so long.
“You want to go first?” he asks.
Of course he wants me to go first—now. “Sure.” My heart’s a nervous wreck, hopping all over the place. Why is it so hard to speak what’s on the inside? “Can I sit up and do it?”
He chuckles a little. “Of course. You don’t have to ask.”
We sit up and look over the side of the platform we’re supposed to jump from. The water sways, and the sun reflects off the surface like an eternal flame.
“Ready?” I say.
“Yes.”
I inhale until my lungs feel like they’ll burst, and then I speak. “Sometimes I’ve wished I was a man.”
Arthor is quiet for a minute before he whispers, “You mean…like…you’re attracted to girls?”
“No, what are you crazy?” I punch him in the arm. It’s illegal to be gay in Newland, usually punishable by death. “It’s just…” My voice lowers, just in case someone is listening. “It’s just so much easier for a man, you know. They have so much more power…and control. Sometimes it just sucks being a girl.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right.” I laugh a little.
“So that’s the deepest, darkest secret you have?”
“It is. And the most powerful one, too. Maybe it’s pathetic.”
“No, not at all.”
I hear footsteps behind us, and then panting.
“You guys ready to jump?” a deep voice says.
I turn around and recognize the boy with the white hair immediately. “Hey,” I say. “Cory, is it?” I’m surprised he’s here so late in the competition—I thought for sure he’d be one of the first ones to finish.
Cory’s eyes narrow into slivers as he scrutinizes me, and I can’t help but notice that his tree-trunk-sized neck is glistening with sweat. “Yeah. I remember you, too. I’m sure everyone’s surprised you made it this far.”
“Uh…yeah,” I say. He must be referring to the poll from TV where I was voted the least likely to survive. Or how everyone’s talking about me—I know they are.
“Seems you’re smarter than most to pace yourself, especially when there’s no real time limit on this phase,” Cory says.
“Sure.” I shrug my shoulders. No harm in letting him think I was intentionally trying to be slow. Then something unexpected happens. A small bubble of excitement swells on the inside; I proved everyone wrong.
Cory continues. “But seriously, don’t listen to them. They want to put you in a box and keep you there.”
“I’m Arthor.” He reaches out his hand toward Cory.
Cory takes it, smiles, and they shake. “Pretty bad gash you got there.”
Arthor looks down at his leg. “I’ll manage.”
“Well, better be off s
o I can be done with this. Wanna join me?” Cory asks.
“We’ll be jumping in a minute,” Arthor says, eyeing me.
Cory salutes us, runs toward the edge, and without another word, hurls himself off the cliff.
I spring to my feet, rush over to the edge, and watch as he plummets toward the blue ocean. My chest feels like it contains a hundred bouncing crickets. When he hits the water, white blooms around him and he vanishes beneath the waves. Will he come back up? For every second that he remains gone, my breathing becomes a little shallower. I wait longer. No one can stay under water that long, can they? I scan the entire sea, but there are no bodies anywhere. And no hovercrafts to disintegrate the floating corpses. Most likely, Arthor and I are close to being the last ones to jump, so surely some of the participants must have died. But where did everyone go?
After waiting longer than I deem any human could survive without a breath, I take a step back. If he didn’t make it, there’s no way I’ll survive the two-hundred-foot fall.
I look at Arthor, who’s not breathing either but rather gawking at the water as if he’s expecting Cory to suddenly appear. Trying to get my mind off Cory’s death—and what his death means when it comes to my fate—I ask, “So, what’s your secret?”
Arthor’s lips draw to a line, and he sits back down. “Will you promise me you’ll still be my friend after I tell you?”
I sigh. If this is one of my last moments, I’m not going to waste it holding on to a grudge. “If you want me to.”
He nods. “Ready?”
I nod.
He leans in and whispers, his hand cupped to my ear. “I’m gay.”
I do everything I can to not react in any which way—not shocked, or confused, or disturbed, the very emotions I’m feeling at the moment. I’m shocked because I never suspected anything; he seems as straight as any other guy I’ve met. I’m disturbed because I always thought gays were so different, strange even. He must think I hate him, especially after how I reacted when he thought I might be gay. Sometimes gay citizens are given the chance to join a rehabilitation program, which supposedly cures them. I’ve even heard President Volkov say there’s no such thing as a homosexual person but that homosexuality is a disease that can be developed from watching indecent programs. It doesn’t sound quite right to me.
“No response?” he says, chuckling lightly, grabbing behind his neck.
“Well, I just never thought…er…I’m surprised,” I say with all honesty. “But thank you for telling me.” My father hates gay people, says they’re the scum of the earth and that it states in the Bible that they’re an abhorrence in the sight of God. I believe in a god, too, but somehow I can’t imagine that a loving god hates any of his children.
Arthor sighs. “It feels good to get that off my chest.”
“Have you told anyone before?” I ask.
He shakes his head somewhat sheepishly.
“Not even your parents?”
“No. Well, Tristan was the only one who knew. And my…boyfriend.” He glances at me from underneath his eyelashes.
His boyfriend? Who could that be? I never once saw him with anyone I’d suspect of being his boyfriend. All these years, and I never knew.
“My parents suspect, I think, if they don’t know already. My father seems to avoid me whenever he can.”
“I’m sorry.”
He claps his hands together and rubs them briskly. “Well, let’s do this thing.” Struggling to his feet, limping on his one good leg, he toes the edge of the cliff and peers down.
I stop him. “Wait…can I…hold your hand?” I don’t know where that came from, but something inside me needs someone right now. And somehow, revealing to him my deepest secret, and him revealing his to me, it feels natural to share this defining moment with him.
He smiles. “Sure. On three?”
I stand up and walk over to the side of the edge, looking down on the same bottomless sea that just swallowed up Cory’s body. My head starts to spin, and my legs turn into two wobbly stilts. It’s way farther than I’ve ever dreamed of jumping, and way farther than I can see myself surviving. Should I quit? If I pull out of the obstacles, I’ll be sent back home—nothing would be worse than that. I just need to do this before I think about it any more or before I lose the little ignorance I still have left and change my mind.
Trying to get a hold of my erratic breathing, I think about what Nicholas said to me before I left the Conference Center: “For the last jump, make sure you jump feet first, no interlocking of the fingers, close your eyes, and plug your nose.”
Instead of reaching for my locket, I take Arthor’s hand in mine and clasp my other hand underneath my armpit. Don’t think. Just count. “One…two…” I can’t. I’ll die. Tristan. No—don’t think, just do it.
“Three!”
* * *
There’s a time in all our lives when we come to the realization that no matter what we do or how we choose to spend the hours and days that are ours, death is the only outcome. It’s crazy really how we walk around as if that momentous day will never arrive—like it’s a myth or an illusion—avoiding thinking about that instant when we will no longer exist. Maybe it’s a survival instinct. If we truly understood that death could snatch us before we’re even aware of it, we would be freaking out, desperate to avoid the inevitable, searching for a remedy that would immortalize our bodies.
Is it too late for me?
END OF BOOK 1
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