Awaken (7 page)

“Maybe you can meet us out afterwards?” she asked.

I nodded but knew it would never happen. The benefit lasted all night and my parents would be busy trying to set me up with Paul Thompson, the son of their best friends. We dined together every year at the fundraiser and our parents encouraged our relationship to blossom
every
year. I studied Clare, and something in her playful smile gave me hope this year might be different.

I glanced quickly over at Justin and he was leaning down, talking to Scott. Scott nodded and his eyes immediately went to mine. I looked away. My gut told me there was more going on than a casual introduction to his friends. It felt closer to an initiation than a coffee date.

Justin and I left the coffee shop and climbed onto the north-bound train. We both took a seat next to the window. He stretched out his long legs across the aisle.

“So, what do you do when you’re not in school?” he asked. I blinked back at him.

“You mean for fun?” He nodded and I started listing the social sites I hang out on – TeenZone, Mentropolis, BookTalk, and MovieMainstream.

He interrupted me.

“No, I mean, what do you do when you’re not online?”

I narrowed my eyes at him and felt like he was attacking me. But his eyes weren’t judgmental. He just looked curious.

“There aren’t a whole lot of options,” I pointed out. He nodded and waited for me to continue. I told him I worked out.

“On your running machine?” he asked. “That doesn’t count, it’s still a screen.”

“I play soccer,” I stated.

He nodded. “Okay, I’ll give you that.”

I racked my brain to try and think of anything else. I told him I drew on my ceiling canvas.

“Still doesn’t count. It’s plugged in, right?”

He was grinning and for once I was too annoyed to let his smile tie my stomach into knots. I glared back at him.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just my favorite question to ask people. Because it proves a point. Most people, no matter what they do, are always plugged in. That’s the problem.”

“What do you do for fun?” I asked. “Interrogate innocent people?”

He ran his hands through his hair to try and calm it down but it just made it stick up even more, like his hair had the same independent energy he did.

“You’re looking at it,” he said.

I glanced around the compartment. “You ride trains around?”

He nodded and told me he doesn’t have time these days, but when he was younger, he spent entire days taking trains wherever they went.

“Haven’t you ever jumped on a train for the fun of it?” he asked.

“No,” I answered. He stared at me like I was crazy and I returned the look. “You know, you’re the anomaly right now. I’m the normal digitalized citizen.”

His eyes narrowed like he didn’t believe me. Like he could see inside of me. “What’s the fun in always knowing where things will take you?”

I frowned at his question. I always knew where my life was headed. Life has a way of mapping itself out for you and that’s what you follow.

“What’s the fun in getting lost?” I asked. I didn’t expect Justin to answer me, but he started rambling. He told me you see the most when you’re not looking for anything in particular. He told me when you look too hard for something, you get nearsighted because you only see what you want to see.

“It’s like looking through a microscope your whole life,” he said. “You miss the whole picture. Sometimes you need to get lost in order to discover anything.”

I stared at Justin as he was rattling this off, like it was just everyday words to him. But I wanted to record his words. I wanted to write them on my ceiling canvas and wake up to them every day. Because suddenly I realized everything he was saying were words I’d been waiting to hear.

I looked out the window and the sidewalk blurred past as the train sped north along Third Street, stopping periodically to let people on and off. A metal jungle of office buildings passed us by. I stared up at the giant businesses blocking out the sky. I thought about the people who worked inside of them, people who woke up to computers, worked all day behind them, and came home at the end of the day to their flipscreens or wall screens to live vicariously through a life that was more entertaining than their own. That’s what our culture had become, bodies moving mindlessly between digital worlds.

We passed miles of apartment buildings, and the train stopped in front of the Willamette River Park, the largest public park in town. I looked out at a green expanse that seemed misplaced between the sky-rises. Huge plastic trees swayed back and forth. They were beautiful and so real that if you didn’t know they were fake you would never doubt it; their form and movement were natural in the wind. It was like most of digital life: it wasn’t exactly real but it was such a perfect resemblance people never questioned it.

“You know,” Justin said, and nodded toward the window. “You can see all of this online. But that’s cheating. No computer program can compare to the physical experience. It’s like learning how to play a virtual sports game. You’re not really playing anything, against anyone. You’re just a spectator. People are becoming spectators of their own lives instead of living them. But the best part is
getting in the game.
That’s when it’s all worth it.” He looked around the inside of the train and then leaned closer to me. “And I love observing people. There aren’t many opportunities to do it these days, but trains are one of them.”

I glanced at the two other people in our compartment. One man, in his late thirties or early forties, drooped low in his seat at the back of the car. Two large suitcases sat on either side of him. He looked tired and weathered and his glossy eyes stared straight ahead of him. An older man, his face covered in a thick gray beard that fell to his chest, sat at the front of the car. He was mumbling to himself and swaying from side to side like he was following some rhythm no one else could hear.

Justin kept his voice low. “I like trying to figure people out. You know, where they’re going, what they’re thinking.” He nodded at the man with the suitcases. “Like that guy. What do you think his story is?”

I studied his bags on the floor. “It looks like he’s traveling,” I said without giving it much thought. Justin shook his head.

“I don’t think so,” he whispered. “Look at the shirt hanging out of his bag. He packed in a hurry. Something impulsive, like he just got in a fight with his girlfriend, grabbed everything he owned, and moved out.”

I looked back at the man and saw anger behind the tired gaze of his eyes. He didn’t look physically tired, more emotionally drained. “Maybe she was cheating on him.”

Justin nodded. “Definitely something heated.”

He glanced at the other man in front of the car. “Then, we have chatty Kathy over there,” he said. I raised my eyebrows at the old man who was still jabbering on to himself. “What’s going on with him?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes. “He’s talking to himself. My vote is he’s crazy.”

He thought about this. “Maybe he’s normal and we’re the crazy ones. Maybe everyone should talk to themselves. Maybe we’re all just afraid of what we’d say.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. But Justin’s words lingered in my mind like they were on repeat. People were programmed to live inside accepted roles. I wondered what life would be like if we always spoke our minds without having to fear the consequences.

The train stopped on Hamersley and we both stepped off and headed down the sidewalk. The daylight was fading and I noticed a change in the air, or maybe the change was internal. In the hours I’d spent with Justin it felt like a tight, confining layer of skin had lifted free. It was a subtle transition, a shift that happened effortlessly, like when the rain stops falling and the clouds silently open up to let the sun run out and play.

“Thanks for introducing me to your friends,” I said.

“It wasn’t too terrifying?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I see what you mean, about being social,” I admitted. I chose my next words carefully because I wasn’t used to opening up about my honest feelings.

“Sometimes, online, I feel like we’re not really people. We’re more like characters.” I felt him studying me while I said this. “It’s like living inside a reality show all the time. We edit out the scenes so we can appear a certain way. It makes me wonder if I really know anybody.”

Justin nodded but he didn’t say anything.

“When am I going to hear from you again?” I asked as we turned onto my street.

“That’s why I wanted you to meet those guys. They’ll be in touch.”

I glanced at him. “What if I want to talk to
you?
” I couldn’t explain how or why but I felt closer to Justin than to some of my online contacts I’d known for years. He was one of those people who charged the air with an energy you wanted to absorb. Like if you were in his presence long enough, he could rub off on you. And I realized now that being in the raw presence of someone makes you connect on a level that words can never reach.

He stopped walking and turned to look at me. His expression darkened in a way I sometimes saw my father’s features change when he wanted to hide his emotions, when he felt like his words could hurt. A trickle of disappointment rose in my chest.

“There’s something you need to understand right away,” he said, slowly articulating each word. “My life, what I do, is really unpredictable. I’m never anywhere for any length of time.

“You can trust me. I’ll always be honest with you. But it’s really hard for me to be there for people. It’s just the way my life works. The sooner you understand that about me, the better. I contact people when I have a reason to. But that’s it.”

I felt my own face mirror the intensity in his eyes. I wanted to depend on Justin more than anyone. I needed to.

“But what if I need to get ahold of you?” I asked again.

He shrugged. “You can call Clare,” he offered.

“That not what I asked.”

Justin’s lips tightened and he started walking again. “I have a lot going on in my life, Maddie. More than you can comprehend.” He spoke the last sentence slowly.

“Who doesn’t?”

“Don’t compare me to the majority. It’s not the same.”

I stared at him. “If your time is so precious, why are you investing it in me? You’ve been trying to drag me to that study group for weeks, for a class you’re not even taking. Why?”

He hesitated for a moment but appeared satisfied with an answer. “Because we all want to get to know you.”

Our feet brushed the turf in the front yard and Justin and I both stopped to study my house. For the first time, I was embarrassed to live in a mansion. The design is classic: a three-story colonial home covered in dark gray siding, with black shutters outlining each window. It’s easily the largest house in the neighborhood, with six bedrooms and four private balconies. In a house as large as ours, the three of us can live inside all day without even running into each other. Sadly, we’re comfortable that way.

I looked back at Justin.

“I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me,” I said. He stared back at me and his eyes were dark.

“Maybe there’s something you’re not telling me.”

We stood there, facing each other with our arms crossed over our chests. His eyes pulled at mine and I couldn’t look away. But I couldn’t tell him the truth. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what I did when I was fifteen. It was part of my probation terms. My father and I spent months covering my trail to make sure the media never found out the truth, or he could have lost his job. My past was the one thing I needed to keep secret and the one thing Justin seemed determined to pull out of me.

“There’s nothing to tell,” I said. “I’m like every other kid in this country. I go to digital school so I can eventually go to digital college and someday lead a happy, digital life.”

Justin shook his head. “I’m not talking about everyone. I’m talking about you. And I’m getting the impression that’s not what you want at all.”

“I’m fine with it.”

His eyes narrowed with disbelief. “Then why are you grounded? Why does your dad plant bugs on you?”

I opened my mouth to argue but I didn’t know how to lie to him. Or maybe, for the first time, I didn’t
want
to lie. His eyes locked on mine but before either of us could say anything the front door opened and my mom’s head peered outside.

“Madeline, your father’s on his way home from the airport.” She glanced between us and Justin nodded, taking the hint. His eyes met mine for a brief moment and he told me he’d be in touch. I took a deep breath and headed up the stairs to the front door, silently thanking my mom for her perfect timing.

Here’s the breakdown of a day in my life: My computer wakes me up every morning. You can program whatever morning greeting you want – mine plays a song it thinks I would like. It never shuts off – it just sleeps when I sleep. We have eight computers in our house: one in the kitchen, living room, basement, and dining room. Another is in my dad’s office and he and my mom both have computers in their bedroom, wired to separate wall screens. My dad even has a wall screen in his shower so he can watch the news in the morning. The noise never shuts off.

My mornings begin with class. I attend DS classes for six hours a day and only take a break during lunch for a protein fruit drink and either a Fibermix sandwich or a VeggieTray salad. The same meal every day. Healthy. Convenient. Fast.

Based on grades, it appears school comes naturally to me. I don’t even check my scores anymore at the end of the term, but Dad prints them out and calls me into his office to show me the straight As. I used to assume these grades were what everyone achieved, until I got older and took advanced computer classes and realized I’m in the top 97 percentile of my peers. The top 10 percent of DS students are offered
the most competitive internships and highest college-placement classes. The top 5 percent are usually scouted by the major digital universities. I guess being in the top 3 percent is especially unusual but it really doesn’t faze me. My dad is pleased to define me with an arbitrary letter based on statistical averages, but I think labeling someone’s intelligence with a letter grade isn’t a sign of their ability. Earning an A in digital school is more than being smart. It means being obedient. Doing what you’re told. Selling out to the system. I show up to class and follow the leader. I earn an A for regurgitating other people’s thoughts, not by forming my own.