Only Ever Yours

  “This doesn’t look like it did on the model.” I pull at the faded T-shirt, the floral embellishment crumpling beneath my fingers.

  “It was as close a match as I could find within the School’s fashion closet.”

  Back in my cubicle, I examine my body from every angle in the mirrored wall, swallowing disgust.

  “Let’s go.”

  It’s freja at the doorway, her collarbones spiky in a beige crocheted top and canary-yellow skirt.

  “I’m ready,” I say, pushing my feet into the faux snakeskin slingbacks and falling into line, hurrying to catch up with daria in front of me.

  The dorm is bursting with the sound of thirty pairs of high heels scraping against the black-and-white diamond tiles. We march together in silence, the same as we do every morning.

  Outside the main entrance of the dormitory, a free-standing fotobooth has been reassembled for the start of the new term. daria forces the rickety sliding door open, her toffee-colored hair artfully disheveled, indigo-blue eyes sparkling with pleasure. Why is she pleased? Did she take the perfect foto? A better foto than mine will be?

  “freida.”

  freja prods the small of my back with her knobby fingers and I stumble into the empty booth, sliding the door shut behind me.

  1. Turn partially to the camera, one foot in front of the other.

  2. Weight on the back foot.

  3. Left hand on hip.

  4. Dazzling smile.

  There is a flash of light, my foto uploaded instantly to the School website for the Euro-Zone Inheritants to judge, determining my opening ranking for the year. I’m left in the darkness. I should leave, but just for a moment I want to stay in here. I want to hide, fold into the shadows and become invisible so no one can look at me anymore.

  I hope the foto was perfect.

  Chapter 2

  “Our new classroom,” freja announces, throwing her arms wide open. I waited in the Nutrition Center for her to finish pretending to eat her breakfast so we could go to class together. I didn’t want to walk in alone.

  “Wow. It’s so different,” I say dryly. Like last year, and all the years previous to that, the majority of our classes will be held in a large room painted entirely in black, the obsolete windows boarded up with black wooden panes. The wall at the front of the room is sheeted in mirrored glass from floor to ceiling. In front of that is the chastity’s desk, a weathered oak with dull brass knobs, two upstanding glass boxes flanking it, one on either side. Rows of tiered seating and desks with mirrored tops are squeezed into the center of the room, a narrow set of steps covered in threadbare black carpet running up the middle. The summer holidays feel like a distant dream already.

  “freida! You look amazing!” cara squeals, her dark blond hair fanning around her face as she rushes to hug me. freja, waiting in vain for a similar compliment, falters for a second, then smiles at me with disproportionate enthusiasm and says, “Totally.”

  “No, I don’t,” I reply automatically. We throw our handbags onto the broad windowsill on the far side of the room before climbing up ourselves, the perfect position to observe everyone else coming in.

  “Don’t take all day,” cara jokes, brushing dust off her plaid cotton shirt and acid-wash skinny jeans as freja and I struggle in our heels. Once we’re sitting, freja takes out a pocket mirror from her clutch and scans her face, as if she’s afraid it might have disappeared. Snapping it shut with a sigh, she leans back against the wooden board and clucks with disapproval as heidi walks in, her cerise halter-neck dress slashed to the navel. heidi’s head snaps in our direction. After sixteen years in School, we have all developed a sixth sense for judgment.

  “freida, you look great.” daria has floated over to join us, her eyes skimming over my body.

  “Totally,” freja says, far more convincing now that she has had time to prepare. “I love that skirt.” I dip my head, smiling. “Did isabel pick it out for you?” she continues sweetly, and my smile freezes. “She has such good taste.”

  “Where is she, by the way?” cara asks, her thick eyebrows knitting together. They have asked me this every day for the past two months. “Her VideoChat has been off all summer.”

  “She’s not feeling well,” I reply yet again. I don’t want to admit that I know as little as they do.

  The room is filling up. gisele swaggers through the door in a draped navy vest top over snug white jeans, her hips swaying as she walks toward us and links her arm through daria’s. The twins, jessie and liz, follow her, exact replicas in matching turquoise playsuits, moving as if their limbs are attached to one body. Golden-blond hair frames heart-shaped faces, aqua-colored eyes staring vacantly at us.

  “Where’s isabel?” gisele asks immediately, setting my teeth on edge. Her skin looks perfect. She’s obviously fully recovered from that allergic reaction.

  “Her door was still down this morning,” jessie says. “And locked. I checked.”

  “Are you sure?” liz gasps, pretending that she doesn’t already know. If jessie checked the door was locked, then liz was there with her, checking it too. “Our doors are never locked.”

  “Weird,” they say together, as if the rest of us are unaware of this fact after sixteen years in School.

  “She hasn’t been at the Nutrition Center,” freja says. She has complained about the injustice of this at every meal for the past two months.

  “I haven’t seen her at the gym either,” gisele offers, placing a hand on her toned stomach. freja, watching her closely, sniffs and draws her shoulders in toward her chest to make her razor-sharp clavicle even more prominent. “And I’ve been at the gym a lot.”

  “megan’s here,” daria interrupts, running her fingers underneath the frayed edges of her bleached denim cut-offs and pulling them down her tanned muscular thighs. “megan! Over here!” She waves her over to us. “Now she really looks amazing.”

  I look at her sharply. Is that supposed to mean I don’t?

  “megan, you look beautiful!” daria says as megan air-kisses the twins, smacking loudly, her painted red lips inches away from their skin. “Beautiful,” I mutter, wishing I was lying. A thin sheath of sea-green silk clings to her perfect body, a one-shouldered full-length toga. 3.0 Brown Black hair is styled in coiled braids at the crown of her head, #214 Arsenic Green eyes seared into her luminously pale skin. She’s perfect.

  “Is there room for one more?” She points at us perched up on the windowsill and smiles again, her eyes watchful as cara, freja and I look at each other in unspoken challenge. Finally freja, the lowest ranked of us three, jumps down, proclaiming she was “tired of sitting there anyway.” megan flicks her hands and cara and I move apart to make space for her. She springs up as easily as if she was wearing sweatpants and sits between us.

  “freida!” Her shriek pierces the din of chatter, causing heads at the other side of the classroom to turn around. “Look how dark you are compared to me!” She grabs my arm and presses it against hers. “Isn’t she so dark?”

  “Yeah, but your skin is beautiful, megan,” the twins say on cue.

  I jerk my arm back and huddle it into my chest, grinning to show how little I care.

  “And so smooth,” cara says, rolling up the sleeve of her shirt to compare.

  “They should be. I got a full-body wax from chastity-hope in Beauty Therapy yesterday.” A shadow passes over her face. “I don’t understand why we can’t have laser treatment like the eves in the Americas do.”

  “Or better yet, be designed without body hair at all, like in the Chindia-Zone,” daria says, fiddling with a hole in her black crepe T-shirt.

  “Hmm, yes,” megan replies, her eyes drifting toward liu, sitting with christy at the other side of the room. “I suppose some good things have come out of Chindia.”

  “It was worth it. You look great,” cara says, and megan tilts her head, accepting this compliment as her due.

  “Where is isabel?” Obviously our opinion is not enough. She needs to com
pare herself with the #1 eve, see how she measures up. “Why wasn’t she at breakfast again?”

  “I told you this morning.” And the morning before that, and the morning before that again. “She’s sick.” But megan’s not listening to me, she’s staring at the entrance to the classroom.

  “Sick?” she repeats gleefully, and I follow her gaze, my heart sinking when I realize what is causing her such delight. An ill-fitting striped T-shirt tucked into high-waisted flares only emphasize isabel’s weight gain, her tangled hair pulled into a high ponytail away from her makeup-free face. She walks slowly up the central steps, as if the extra pounds of flesh are weighing her down. Heads are turning to stare, watching as she takes a seat in the back row on the left-hand side, as far away from the rest of us as she can get.

  “Clearly being sick hasn’t affected her appetite,” megan says. “And there we were, worrying about her missing meals.”

  liz and jessie giggle again, but a bit nervously this time. I’ve never heard megan say anything overtly nasty about isabel before. I’ve never heard anyone say anything nasty about isabel.

  “Quiet down, eves.”

  At the sound of that voice the three of us jump down from the windowsill. cara and I stumble, grabbing hold of one another for balance, but megan lands gracefully, smirking at our clumsiness. chastity-ruth waits behind the wide oak desk, her hands lost in the cavernous depths of her black robes. The recessed ceiling lights are bouncing off her shaved skull, her ash-gray eyes narrowed at us, traces of prettiness fading away in her fine-boned face. We didn’t hear her come in. We never do.

  “Take your places. You may choose your own seating arrangements as a privilege of being in 16th year,” she says, and we hesitate, fearing a trap.

  “Now,” she says, her voice chillingly quiet.

  The others scramble for position. cara calls me, patting the empty chair next to her in the front row. Before I would have refused without thinking, my natural place being with isabel, but now I don’t know what to do. I wait for a second too long and gisele claims the seat, stretching her long legs out in front of her as cara makes an apologetic face at me. I climb the steps toward isabel, burrowed into the corner of the room.

  “Here are your new rankings for the first week of final year.” chastity-ruth taps the board behind her and the mirror dissolves to expose a huge computer screen as she gives VoiceCommands to upload our rankings.

  “In first place, we have . . .” chastity-ruth clears her throat twice and takes a sip of water from the plastic cup on her desk—“eve #767.”

  megan’s face fills the screen. megan? I stare at the foto, her green eyes triumphant, as if she knew her time had finally come. This is the first time in twelve years that isabel hasn’t been #1. I don’t dare to look up. I’m afraid that megan will see my doubt and remember it. I’m afraid that isabel will somehow see within me, see my secret regret that I wasn’t the one who finally beat her, the embers of resentment over sixteen years of living in her shadow smoldering inside me.

  “In second place . . .”

  Please let it be me. Please let it be me.

  “. . . eve #701.”

  jessie’s foto flashes on the screen and I smile to hide my disappointment.

  “At #3 . . .”

  liz’s face where mine should be. And I forget how to breathe.

  cara is at #4.

  “And, dropping two places, I see, we have eve #630 in fifth place.”

  My fingers tighten over my kneecaps, boring into the bone. I stare at my reflection in the desktop, willing my face not to betray me. My eFone vibrates against the desk, a foto of megan appearing on the screen. I crouch out of view to listen to the message.

  “You look so tired in your foto. I can lend you some of my new concealer if you’d like. It’s supposed to work miracles.”

  I straighten up. She’s watching me from the first row, patting imaginary bags under her eyes.

  “. . . And, finally, in last place, we have eve #700,” chastity-ruth finishes, agyness coming last as always. The tabletops shimmer to form an updated grid, our faces displayed in order of rank.

  “isabel, will you please accompany me to my office?” the chastity says, baring her teeth in a facsimile of a smile. I half stand in my seat to allow isabel to pass, whispering to her, “Good luck.”

  She gives no sign of having heard me and fear prickles in my stomach. Is she angry with me? Did she see my momentary regret that it wasn’t me who had beaten her? The chastity waits until isabel reaches her before escorting her out the door, barking back at us, “Make your way to your next class immediately.”

  Everyone filters out slowly, chatting loudly about the new rankings, a jumble of words with “isabel, isabel, isabel” like a drumbeat underneath the chorus, until it is only our group remaining. I grab my bag and walk down the steps toward them, pushing past liu, standing at the edge of our seats.

  “Bye, liu-liu,” megan says sweetly, wiggling her fingers in farewell. “Didn’t you hear chastity-ruth say to get to your next class?”

  “Did you see?” daria bursts out once liu has slouched out, closing the door behind her with a bang. “There are only twenty-nine faces. isabel isn’t ranked.”

  I scan the grid on the table before me, tracing a crack in the screen that is scratching into cara’s foto. She’s right. isabel is missing.

  “That is weird,” liz and jessie chorus, scrunching their faces up.

  “How is that even possible?” gisele asks.

  “It’s probably because of her weight gain,” daria says.

  “But christy gained weight as well,” gisele points out. “I’d say at least 2.4 pounds, if not 2.7.”

  I wrap my arms around my stomach, trying to hide that extra pound of flesh with which my body has betrayed me.

  “Not as much as isabel,” daria argues, ignoring freja dry-heaving at the mere thought of weight gain. “There is no way they would want anyone in the main Zone seeing that. Standards must be upheld. What will the Inheritants think when they arrive?”

  “But who knows when their visits will start? They might not come for months!”

  They start arguing among themselves, their voices getting louder and louder. Only megan and I are silent.

  “This is boring,” megan snaps, her face pinched with annoyance. “Why are we wasting our time talking about her?”

  “Totally,” the twins say, sensing danger.

  “Congratulations, megs,” daria says smoothly, draping an arm around megan’s shoulders. “You deserve to be #1. You’ve always been the prettiest in our year.”

  “Yeah, the Zone has always been biased toward blondes. It’s stupid,” freja says, delighted at this excuse for her lower ranking, ignoring the twins as they hiss simultaneously.

  “Well, I have a feeling that isn’t going to be the case for much longer,” megan says, stretching her arms into the air in a V for victory, shrugging off daria’s arm roughly. daria simpers with embarrassment but she doesn’t say anything, not like she might have before. I feel as if something is shifting beneath my feet, disturbing my balance.

  “Welcome to final year, girls.”

  Chapter 3

  December

  Seven months until the Ceremony

  “For the love of the Father, eggies for breakfast again?”

  When megan is annoyed, her already irritating fake Americas-Zone accent takes on a nasal quality. Unfortunately megan gets annoyed a lot. Mainly at mealtimes. I have a theory that she views her need for food as her only flaw.

  “I’m sick of eggies. They’re disgusting. Why isn’t there any other lo-carb option available?” she argues with the buffet, as if it could talk back. liz and jessie are murmuring encouragement, ignoring the line of hungry girls behind them waiting to be served.

  “I’m starving,” a tiny girl in front of me whispers to her friend. She’s about four feet tall, waist-length butterscotch hair tied neatly at the nape of her neck with a cerise ribbon, skinny elbow
s poking out of a cerise-and-navy striped polo dress.

  “I’m sorry, did you say something?” megan spins around and places her hands on her knees, bending until she is eye level with the younger girl. “What’s your name then?”

  “l-l-l-lena-rose,” the girl stutters, her arms quivering in fright.

  “Do you have something you would like to say, l-l-l-lena-rose?”

  lena-rose’s head darts left and right. The friend has angled her body away, staring at the ground, the shuffling feet and disgruntled sighs of before falling silent. The delay has been noticed. chastity-ruth snaps to attention at the mere suggestion of trouble, her shaved head almost spinning on her shoulders. Swooping through the symmetrically laid out tables in the Nutrition Center, she descends upon us, her rubber-soled shoes mute against the tiled floor. I am suddenly eager to find my digi-cam in my bag. That she has an ability to turn us to stone is improbable, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

  “Is there a problem, #767?”

  “No problem, chastity-ruth,” megan says, arching her back so her strapless minidress climbs up her supple thighs. She lets her loose black curls spill fetchingly over one shoulder. “No problem at all. Little lena here asked me about some School rules. I was making sure she understood them.”

  Running a hand over the bones of her skull, chastity-ruth nods tersely before returning to the supervision desk at the back of the Nutrition Center. megan, instantly forgetting about the trembling lena-rose, collects her meds from chastity-anne and moves on, allowing the rest of us in the ever-increasing line for the BeBetter buffet to finally be served. When it’s my turn, I look at the display. It’s been divided into three sections, all stacked with identical silver tureens. Above the lo-carb section there is a foto of a bread roll with a red X running through it, the tasty/healthy section has a foto of a froot and veggies pyramid and the 0-kcal section has a foto of weighing scales. I grab a 0-kcal tureen, placing it on my chipboard tray without bothering to inspect the wonders that are hidden beneath the lid. The smells drifting from the Fatgirl buffet are making my mouth water and I try not to think about the toast made with brioche and drizzled with syrup, the chocolate-chip pancakes, the plump soyburgers in fluffy white baps smothered with relish. I have to be good this week.