Awaken (The Awaken Series Book 1) (3 page)

BOOK: Awaken (The Awaken Series Book 1)
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“Writing what, exactly?” Mother finally asked.

“I don’t know. Whenever we have to write an essay for class, I always get the highest grade. I really enjoy writing down my thoughts and opinions on things.” I winced at my choice of words.
 

Writing for fun was forbidden, especially opinion writing—unless for academic purposes, of course. Being a writer was one of the least prestigious occupations. Any creative occupation was. Working for the Council, writers notified the public of any special announcements or information through the Oportet Journal, wrote textbooks, composed rulebooks with special explanations for the younger grades, and a select few privileged writers had the permission to write historical novels or Meaningful Novels. The Meaningful Novel’s purpose was to remind the people of Oportet why
we
have it
right
—the way we live our life, the condemning of the Outside, and the reason we were here to live our lives.

These novels also included powerful testimonies of Outsiders entering Oportet who had finally realized the meaning of life or biographies of councilmen and other past or present influential members of Oportet.

“Being any sort of
writer
,” Father all but spit the word at me, “would be settling beneath you. You have worked too hard in school to earn less than a grocery store clerk.” Father had a way with saying things bluntly. I knew what kind of job my parents truly longed for me to have—they dreamed of me following in their footsteps and working within the government.

“But…what if I wrote Meaningful Novels?” My words were struggling to latch on to something. The hole was already too deep. I looked over at Mother for some help, but she looked away.

“It’s a bit too late to be making that kind of decision. You would have had to be going to all kinds of workshops and classes in the Council’s building to be something like that. Don’t tell me that being a writer is the only occupation you have considered.” He crossed his arms and drew his eyebrows together.
 

I swallowed under his scrutiny. “No, of course not. I just don’t know what I want to be yet. You caught me by surprise.” Mother gave me a tentative smile, and Father’s facial muscles relaxed.

“Once you have given it some thought, I would love to hear some of your ideas. Don’t forget how well you do in your government classes,” Father hinted. And with that he exited the room, leaving Mother and me sitting at the table.

“I’m sorry if you feel we’re pressuring you, but your future is important to us, and we want to give you the best guidance we can to help you succeed.” She reached out to rest her hand on my shoulder. “Go wash the dishes, and maybe later we can play some of those board games Megan got for her birthday.”
 

Halfway through doing the dishes, I heard the phone ring. Interrupting me mid-thought, the noise startled me to the point where I lost my hold on the slippery dinner plate. I watched helplessly as it fell, and then shattered on the yellow tiles.

“Shit,” I muttered absently, my heart thumping in my chest. The plates we had used that night were my late grandmother’s. I ran my soapy hands through my hair as I assessed the damage. I hoped with all my strength that it didn’t leave a mark on the floor. “Shit, shit, shit.” Before I could bend down to pick up the pieces of glass, Mother was suddenly in front of me.

In one swift movement, her hand collided with the side of my face. A burst of pain flooded my head, and I felt myself lose balance. I stumbled, reaching my hands up to cradle the part of my face she had struck. Shards of glass pierced the bottoms of my feet. I slowly lifted my gaze from my feet, now drenched in blood, to Mother’s face.

“How dare you blatantly ignore a rule!” she roared. “This is why your Father and I detest allowing you and Megan to be in the same school as the children of Outsiders. You are lucky it was me who heard you say such an obscene word! If I ever hear a word like that leave your mouth again, you will be severely punished.”
 

I stared at her helplessly.

“It will do you well to remember that the Council’s rules are the glue that holds this society together and the only thing that makes us better than the filthy creatures that dwell behind our walls. Do you understand me?” Mother’s entire body shook with rage, her face tinted an unnatural shade of red.

“I—I understand,” I croaked. Surges of pain erupted from the bottoms of both of my feet, drawing attention away from the numb, stinging sensation on my face.
 

Mother closed her eyes, seemingly calming herself. When she spoke next, her voice was more leveled. “Clean up this mess. I don’t want to hear you speak for the rest of the night.” She glared at me for one more moment before turning on her heel and stomping away.

I felt hot tears running down my cheeks as I stood, frozen. Frustrated with myself, I wiped the moisture from my face. Crying showed weakness; and I was by no means weak.

Chapter Five

I woke up shaking. Heat radiated off of me in waves, and as I shifted under the covers, I could feel my clothes clinging to my body. I tried to sit up, but my weak muscles and vertigo sent me falling backward against my pillows once more. My mouth was dry, making my sole thought how I could get a glass of water without getting out of bed.
 

For a while, I simply stared at the ceiling. My eyes followed each crack, and I even attempted to count every imperfection in the light yellow paint—anything to keep my mind from assessing last night’s memory.
 

I could no longer pretend that it was anything less. It was like I had a book with missing pages, and when I found a page, I knew it belonged in the book—because it fit. Each page was adding to the story, and it was beginning to scare me less and less. Somehow, finding the missing pieces of my memory was like stitching myself back together after being torn apart by some freak accident. I was beginning to want—no,
need
—to stitch myself back together again. Not just the good parts, but the bad parts, too.

I knew that before the accident I had gone against everything Oportet stood for, but I hated relying on the accounts of others instead of my own. I was confident that having the rest of the story would not alter my current state of mind. It would only strengthen my faith that living in Oportet was the only true way to live my life.

Yet, even with these thoughts swirling around in my head, I could not draw myself away from the fact that Mother had acted so harshly towards me. I recounted the coldness in her eyes as she told me to clean my mess up—my ripped, bloody skin included. How had I extracted each miniscule piece of glass from my feet? I had deserved all that had been given to me, hadn’t I? After all, I
had
broken a very clear rule.

My family had treated me like royalty since the accident. The Council had taken a special interest in my story of how I recovered from a rough patch during my teenage years and realized the error of my ways. They had given me special opportunities ever since to share my story—and help out my family in the process. It landed my father a promotion, and almost guaranteed me a well-paying job.

Finally I couldn’t stand the heat enveloping my body anymore, so I crawled out of bed and began my trek to the kitchen. I wobbled down the dark hallway, pausing to listen for signs of any other member of the household’s presence. The house was silent except for the ticking of the grandfather clock.

I steadied myself against the banister as I made my way down the steps. My bare feet met the cold, wooden surface with caution: the feeling of glass piercing my skin not entirely out of my mind. I even had the urge to examine the soles under lighting to see if there were any scars.

After consuming my much-needed dose of flu medicine and cold water, I collapsed into a chair and propped my left foot on my lap, followed by my right.

Sure enough, both feet had an array of faint, pinkish markings. I took in a sharp breath as I placed my foot back onto the tan carpet.

I had decided with a startling sense of certainty to keep the news of my remembrance to myself for now. I tried to justify my reasons for breaking Rule Forty-Seven—
Children shall never keep anything from his/her parents or authority figures
—but in the end I just had to accept that I had no good reason for this level of disrespect. And the funny thing was, as much as I wanted to feel bad about that, the need to keep this secret to myself overpowered the majority of my guilt.

“I heard that I gave you the flu,” Megan said as she passed me on her way to the medicine cabinet. “I thought it was terrible for me to be missing my first week of eighth grade, but it must be even worse for you.”
 

I furrowed my brows and gave her a questioning look.
 

“You know, your first Occupational Guidance Session?” She turned away to cough like she was dying. I was
not
looking forward to that symptom.

“Oh! Yeah…it’s pretty terrible. This is the worst case of the flu I’ve ever had, so thanks a lot,” I joked.
 

She smiled as she plopped a watermelon cough drop in her mouth. “Anytime.” She sat down across from me with her make-up work in hand. I flicked her arm with as much force as I could muster, laughing when she let out a little squeal.

“You’re such a little brat, Megan.” I was incredibly thankful that my relationship with my sister wasn’t tarnished by my pre-accident behavior. If it weren’t for Megan and Jenna, my best friend, I didn’t know how I would’ve held it together.
 

Jenna told me that I had slammed the door on our friendship last year—something I had no recollection of—and she still welcomed me back with open arms. That’s what a best friend was for: forgiving even the worst transgressions.

“I really don’t feel like doing this stuff,” Megan whined.
 

I rolled my eyes and gave her a pointed look.
 

“What? It’s not like you have the right to say anything—you’re in your gap year!” She let out a huff and reluctantly started scribbling in a notebook.

“Yeah. I’m pretty great, aren’t I?”
 

She narrowed her eyes at me and pressed her lips together in a thin line. Her long red hair was tucked behind her ears—the hair that she shared with Mother, while Father and I shared dark brown.
 

I patted her head as I made my way to the kitchen, dodging her attempt to swat my hand. Because I’d fallen asleep so early in the day, I had managed to go a full sixteen hours without food. My stomach let out a growl to confirm my hunger.

I dropped bread into the toaster and opened the refrigerator to retrieve the strawberry jam. I saw a figure in my peripheral and turned my head to meet Mother’s gaze.

“How did you sleep, Luna?” She was scanning my face nervously. I spread jam on my toast, turning my back to her, the memory of last night still vivid in my mind.

“It was great. I think being sick has given me more sleep than I’ve had my entire life.” When I turned with my plate in hand, she was right in front of me.

My stomach churned as I tried to act normal. We were both standing in the exact spot as the memory. I could almost feel the pain enveloping my feet as they were impaled with the many pieces of glass, and the stinging of my face when Mother’s hand collided with my cheek. I took a deep breath.

“Honey, are you all right? You’re very pale.”
 

I managed a small smile. “I’m fine. Just sick.” I shrugged. My hands tightened around the plate as she moved closer. In my mind I was seeing two different scenes unfolding: The scene from the past, and the scene in the present.

Each version of Mother lifted her hand, and I jerked backward, slamming my side into the open cabinet door. My grip on the plate loosened, and I struggled to catch it before it hit the ground. My hand grazed the tip of the glass just before it tumbled to the yellow tile.

I took in a sharp breath as my head spun. Mother was staring at the pieces of glass and the smeared toast with jam strewn out in front of us with her mouth open.
 

She raised her head to look at me, and all I could see was fear swimming in her big green eyes.

~~~~~

When I was just a little girl, I would always flee to my aunt’s house after getting into trouble. Aunt May took me into her warm home filled with the scent of fresh-picked flowers, and she held me until I could calm down and tell her how I had misbehaved. It always baffled me how she could be so calm after I confessed the breaking of a rule—how she could just stroke my hair and whisper that everything would be okay.

Aunt May was ten years younger than Mother, and the two very rarely acted like sisters. They went through the motions at family dinners and acted polite while in each other’s presence, but anyone could see that there was something off with the way they looked at each other.

My family knew where I was when I fled to Aunt May’s. She would call them and let them know that I was all right, and knowing whom she was talking to, I would burrow under her blankets and cry harder. Then she would curl up next to me and tell me stories. It was our little secret. Storytelling was forbidden unless it came from the Council’s elite writers, but Aunt May repeatedly broke the rule for me. She was the only one who had ever broken a rule for me.

Her words drew me far away from Oportet. They rolled off her tongue with such beauty and captivation—her words alone could convince me that fantasy was reality. I had no recollection of what most of her stories were about, but they were insane in the most thrilling ways.

As I grew older and was taught the contents of
Oportet’s Official Rulebook
, I learned that fiction was dangerous. I became overwhelmed with guilt at our secret. I felt awful when I longed to hear Aunt May pull me out of reality and into a completely different world, and even worse when I let her continue breaking the rule for
me
. I still could not wrap my head around that truth. Aunt May not only broke the rule in front of a child, but
for
the child. It was her way of comforting me—but it was wrong.

BOOK: Awaken (The Awaken Series Book 1)
9.24Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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