Denver couldn’t possibly be as crowded as it was here.
“I’m going to talk to Tabs,” I said, and Benjy stopped cold in his tracks.
“Don’t. Wait until I take my test. Nina will let you stay at the group home, and then I can support you.”
“Nina won’t commit assignment fraud for me, and I won’t let you do it, either,” I said. “If they find out you’re hiding me, they’ll send me Elsewhere and kill you in front of the entire country. It’s not happening.”
“Then Nina can give me permission to get married,” he said, and my mouth dropped open.
“Are you crazy?”
“No,” he said. “I love you, and I won’t let them separate us. If that means getting married earlier than I’d planned, then so be it.” He paused. “Do you not want to marry me?”
“Of course I want to marry you, but you haven’t even taken the test yet, and what if being married to a III affects your rank? I can’t do that to you, Benjy. You deserve better than that.”
“What do I deserve, Kitty? To lose you? I don’t care about the consequences.”
At least he hadn’t fooled himself into thinking there wouldn’t be any. “You’d never let me risk myself like that for you, so I can’t let you, either,” I said, fighting to keep my voice even. “I’ve already made my decision.”
“Kitty.” He held his arm up to stop me, and when I started to move past him, he wrapped it around my waist again and pulled me closer. “I’m not going to let you do this to yourself.”
I tried to push him away, but his grip tightened. “I’m the one who has to clean up shit for a living, not you. You don’t get a say.”
“We can run away,” he said. “We can go somewhere warm. Have our own cottage, grow our own food—”
“Neither of us knows anything about farming. Besides, if a place like that exists, the Harts would have claimed it by now.”
“You don’t know that for sure. There’s hope, Kitty. There’s always hope. Please,” he said quietly. “For me.”
The way he watched me, silently begging me to say yes, almost made me change my mind, but I couldn’t do that to him. Running away would mean he would miss his test, and no mark at all was as good as a I.
I’d failed, but he still had his chance, and I couldn’t let him throw his life away for me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. His face crumpled, and he turned away, dropping his arm. The cold seeped in where he’d touched me only moments before, and my heart sank. I would have done anything to make him happy, but because of my stupid III, I was going to hurt him no matter what I did. At least this way I would be the one risking everything, not him.
Every bone in my body screamed at me to run away with him, to get as far from D.C. as we could, but as we climbed the ladder to the manhole that opened up half a block from the group home, I knew two things for certain: Benjy would spend the entire afternoon trying to talk me into not going with Tabs, and I would do it anyway.
* * *
Nina was waiting for us in the kitchen of our group home, spatula in hand. It was still early enough that everyone was at school—everyone except me, now that I was seventeen, and Benjy, who wouldn’t have missed today for anything. Having Nina to ourselves was a rare treat, but all I wanted to do was climb into my bunk and hide.
“How’d it go?” she chirped, but her smile fell the moment she saw Benjy. She looked to me for an explanation, and I stared at the floor, feeling even worse now than I had when I’d received my results. Nina was the only mother I’d ever known, and even though her attention was split between forty of us, she always seemed to have time for me. The last thing I’d wanted was to disappoint her.
“They didn’t give me extra time,” I finally said.
Without saying a word, she handed her spatula to Benjy and embraced me. All I could do was bury my face in her hair and swallow the sob that had been threatening to escape since the needle had first touched my skin.
“It’s okay,” she murmured. “It wasn’t what you wanted, but you still have your whole life ahead of you, and good things will come your way.”
She brushed her fingers against the back of my neck to see what my rank was, and I flinched. Nina sighed and held me a little tighter, but I knew what she was thinking: at least it wasn’t a II. At least my life was worth a job that wouldn’t kill me and enough food not to starve.
But I’d been stupid enough to hope for happiness and something more than mucking around in the sewers for the rest of my life, and now the ache in my chest was the price I had to pay.
Before today, I had never questioned the ranking system. It was there to give us what we deserved so we could make the most of our natural abilities. The smartest members of society could help people in ways that IIs and IIIs couldn’t, so they earned more. It was fair, and without the test, someone who had grown up in a disadvantaged family might never have their talents recognized. This way, no one would fall through the cracks. No one who deserved a VI would have to live the grim existence of a II, and the people who weren’t happy with their ranks only had themselves to blame.
Benjy was right, though; I wasn’t stupid. I could do complicated math problems in my head, recite stories and poems and talk about what they meant—I just couldn’t make sense of written words. If the tester had bothered to talk to me, she would’ve seen that. Maybe I didn’t deserve a VI, but I didn’t want a VI anyway. All I wanted was to prove I wasn’t a waste.
A long moment passed before Benjy broke the silence. “She was assigned to Denver.”
Nina released me. “That’s halfway across the country,” she said, stunned.
In other words, I would never see Benjy again if I got on that train. My resolve hardened.
“Tabs is stopping by this afternoon,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’m going to talk to her.”
A muscle in Benjy’s jaw twitched. “I can’t do this,” he said, glaring at a spot on the floor. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
Setting the spatula down on the counter, he walked away, and the soft click of the kitchen door made me wince. I watched it, willing him to come back, but the door stayed shut.
“He’ll come around eventually,” said Nina as she went back to mixing. “Don’t you worry.”
“I hope he doesn’t,” I mumbled. “It’d be better for him.”
“None of that,” she said. “You need to focus on what you’re going to do, not how Benjy feels.”
“I’m going with Tabs,” I said, perching on the edge of the worn countertop. “It’s not a bad life, and she seems to like it.”
“Tabs is Tabs. That life might suit her, but that’s not the kind of trouble you’re built for. And don’t let her fool you—it’s a hard life. It might have its perks, but the things you give up...it isn’t worth it.
