My skin prickled up at the thought of so many people with such intense expectations of me. I ran my hands over my arms rapidly. “Everyone here knows what I’m expected to do. How can I possibly live up to that? It’s too much pressure.”
“I know, I’m sorry. But news travels quickly around here. And it’s been so long since we’ve had good news,” Adrien added. “People latch on to hope wherever they can find it.”
I suddenly felt bad for my outburst. They needed me, not just because I was supposed to help them win, but also because simply believing in me was helping them stay strong.
“Do you want to go get some more sleep?” he asked. “I can show you to your dorm room. Or we can go grab some food if you’re hungry.”
I cringed at the thought of the protein mix. “No,” I took Adrien’s hand. “Is there somewhere we can go to be alone and get away from everything?”
“Hmm,” he drummed his fingers on his thigh. “Jilia will be back after she takes care of Xona’s hand. But everyone else is at lunch, then they’ll have class after. We could go to your dorm room.”
I nodded. He led me out of the Med Center and down the hallway, but, instead of continuing down the way we’d come, he took a hallway that forked off to the right. At the end of the hallway were several doors. He stopped at one and pressed on the panel to open it. The lights turned on as we walked in.
The room was about twice the size of my old room back in the Community, but there were four beds built into the wall like shelves, two high. A curtain ran along the length of each, for privacy I assumed. A long metal table with four chairs took up the far wall of the room.
“Looks like you’ve got your choice of beds,” Adrien said. “Ginni’s been living here alone. I’m sure she’ll be beyond thrilled at having you and Xona for roommates.”
I nodded. Ginni seemed nice, but I wasn’t so sure how I felt about rooming with Xona. She was so hostile. “As long as Jilia takes away Xona’s weapons.”
Adrien laughed.
I pushed back the curtain and sat down on the other bottom bed beside Ginni’s. Adrien sat beside me. But suddenly, I didn’t know what to say. A couple nights ago everything had seemed so simple. Adrien and I were finally together again, and that was all that had mattered.
“What now?” I asked, turning to Adrien and searching his eyes.
I’d meant it in the larger sense, but he seemed to take me literally. “Well, we could read for a few hours.” He pointed at one of the tablets on the table. “Your tablet should be loaded with the texts for our Humanities class.”
I was quiet a moment.
“I could help you catch up. I mean, I know you could read it on your own, I thought it just might be nice—” He looked down.
“No, that’s really sweet.” I put my hand on his, and wished once again that we weren’t separated by my suit. What I really wanted was to curl up into his chest so he could stroke my hair and kiss me. But settling in beside him and listening to him read was a close second. “I’d like that.”
He grabbed a tablet from the table. Then we arranged some pillows behind our backs against the wall and he started to read. I felt all my muscles relax at the sound of his voice.
The text was strange, about a man in ancient times, even before the Old World. A king received a vision from an oracle that his son would kill him and marry his wife, the boy’s own mother. The king decided to abandon the boy out on the rocks to die as a baby, so he wouldn’t grow up and do what the vision had said. But someone rescued the boy, and it all happened exactly as predicted anyway.
As odd as the story was, I was fascinated. I’d only ever read history texts before. We didn’t have stories in the Community. It was so interesting to hear the tale unfold through the different characters.
Better than the drama of the story, though, was hearing Adrien as he read. It seemed I could never get enough of looking at his face or listening to him. After everything that had happened over the past few days, it was calming to lose myself in the lilting cadence of his voice. I settled my head against his shoulder as he read.
After a couple of hours, Adrien finally put the tablet down.
“So, the stranger Oedipus killed for insulting him on the road was actually his father?” I asked. “And the queen he married after ridding the city of the Sphinx turned out to be his mother?”
Adrien didn’t look up at me. He just stared down at the tablet, his eyebrows drawn.
“It’s a disturbing story,” I said, thinking that’s why he looked sad. “I wonder if people were all like that in the Old World before the V-chip. Killing strangers on the road and gouging their own eyes out.” I shuddered. “There was so much violence before the V-chips.” Then I thought about the Chancellor, the Uppers, and the Rez fighters here at the Foundation. It seemed no one without the V-chip could stay peaceful for long. Maybe that was the price of having emotion, that the bad always came along with the good.
Adrien didn’t respond. He seemed preoccupied, and after a few moments of silence, he looked up. “Do you think the oracle knew what was going to happen?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, surprised by the question.
“When he told the king what his son was going to do when he grew up. Do you think the oracle knew that it was his words that would set it all in motion?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly.
“None of it would have happened if the stupid oracle had kept his mouth shut. The baby wouldn’t have been put out on the rocks and he would have grown up knowing who his dad and mom were, and they’d all still be alive and sane.”
When he looked back up at me, I could see tears rimming his eyes.
“Adrien, what’s going on?” I tried to take his hand, but he pulled away.
“I gotta go.” He stood up abruptly.
“Adrien, wait,” I stood up too. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. He turned his head away. He knew I could read him better than anyone else, and he didn’t want me to see his face.
“I’m just tired. I’m gonna go get some sleep.” He started toward the door.
“Wait,” I said, pleading. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
He paused but didn’t turn around. “I don’t think I should,” he finally said, his voice rough. “Look at what happened in the play. Telling people about things—” His back slumped. “It can only cause more problems. It can get people killed.”
“Adrien, it’s me. I’m not just people. I’m your…” I reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to figure out how to say what I meant. “I love you.”
He finally turned toward me, but his eyes were still trained on the ground. “I love you too,” he said. “That’s why I can’t talk to you about this.”
He was out of the room before I could say anything back. I stomped on the ground in frustration. I wanted to run after him and demand he tell me what was wrong, but he obviously didn’t want to. Maybe it wouldn’t be right to push him.
I thought about the shadows under his eyes, the way his ribs poked out through his shirt sometimes. Something had been weighing on him for a while now. I realized now it wasn’t only guilt I saw in his eyes sometimes. It was fear.
Which brought up the most worrisome question of all. What did Adrien see in his visions that made him so afraid?
Chapter 9
“I’M SO EXCITED we’re going to be roommates,” Ginni said, almost bouncing where she stood. It was like the girl had invisible springs attached to the balls of her feet. She laced her arm through mine as I looked blearily at the clock on the wall. She and Xona had let me sleep in while they went to morning classes but had come to get me for lunch. I felt like I could sleep another twelve hours. But my stomach grumbled, and I was hungry enough that I could swallow down a whole bowlful of protein goop, maybe even two.