Delirium dt-1

by Lauren Oliver

  Days pass, time ticks away, seconds click forward like dominoes toppling in a line. Every day the heat gets worse and worse. It creeps through the streets of Portland, festers in the Dumpsters, makes the city smell like a giant armpit. The walls sweat and the trolleys cough and shudder, and every day people gather in front of the municipal buildings, praying for a brief blast of cold air whenever the mechanized doors swoosh open because a regulator or politician or guard has to go in and out.

  I have to give up my runs. The last time I do a full loop outside I find that my feet carry me down to Monument Square, past the Governor. The sun is a high white haze, all the buildings cut sharply against the sky like a series of metal teeth. By the time I make it to the statue I’m panting, exhausted, and my head is spinning. When I grab the Governor’s arm and swing myself up onto the statue’s base, the metal burns underneath my hand and the world seesaws crazily, light zigzagging everywhere. I’m dimly aware that I should go inside, out of the heat, but my brain is all foggy and so there I go, poking my fingers around the hole in the Governor’s cupped fist. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Alex already told me that the note he’d left for me months ago must have turned to pulp by now.

  My fingers come out sticky, pieces of melting gum stringing between my thumb and forefinger, but still I root around. And then I feel it slide between my fingers, cool and crisp, folded in a square: a note.

  I’m half-delirious as I open it, but still I don’t really expect it to be from him.

  My hands begin to shake as I read: Lena, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.

  Alex I don’t remember the run home, and my aunt finds me later half passed out in the hallway, murmuring to myself. She has to put me in a bathtub full of ice to get my temperature down. When I finally come to I can’t find the note anywhere.

  I realize I must have dropped it, and feel half-relieved and half-disappointed. That evening we read that the Time and Temperature Building registered 102 degrees: the hottest day on record for the summer so far.

  My aunt forbids me to run outside for the rest of the summer. I don’t put up a fight. I don’t trust myself, can’t be sure my feet won’t lead me back down to the Governor, to East End Beach, to the labs.

  I receive a new date for the evaluations and spend my evenings in front of the mirror rehearsing my answers. My aunt insists on accompanying me to the labs again, but this time I don’t see Hana. I don’t see anyone I recognize. Even the four evaluators are different: floating oval faces, different shades of brown and pink, two-dimensional, like shaded drawings. I am not afraid this time. I don’t feel anything.

  I answer all the questions exactly as I should. When I am asked to give my favorite color, for just the briefest, tiniest of seconds my mind flashes on a sky the color of polished silver, and I think I hear a word— gray—whispered quietly into my ear.

  I say, “Blue,” and everyone smiles.

  I say, “I’d like to study psychology and social regulation.” I say, “I like to listen to music, but not too loudly.” I say, “The definition of happiness is security.” Smiles, smiles, smiles all around, a room full of teeth.

  After I’m done, as I am leaving, I think I see a shifting shadow, a flicker in my peripheral vision. I glance up quickly at the observation deck. Of course, it’s empty.

  Two days later we receive the results of my boards—all passes—and my final score: Eight. My aunt hugs me, the first time she has hugged me in years.

  My uncle pats me on the shoulder awkwardly and gives me the largest piece of chicken at dinner. Even Jenny looks impressed. Gracie rams the top of her head into my leg, one, two, three times, and I step away from her, tell her to stop fussing. I know she’s upset that I’ll be leaving her.

  But that’s life, and the sooner she gets used to it, the better.

  I receive my “Approved Matches” too, a list of four names and statisticsage, scores, interests, recommended career path, salary projections—printed neatly on a white sheet of paper with the Portland city crest at its top. At least Andrew Marcus isn’t on it. I recognize only one name: Chris McDonnell. He has bright red hair and teeth that stick out like a rabbit’s. I only know him because once when I was playing outside last year with Gracie, he started chanting, “There goes the retard and the orphan,” and without really thinking about what I was doing, I scooped up a rock from the ground and turned around and hurled it in his direction. It caught him on the temple. For a second his eyes crossed and uncrossed. He lifted his fingers to his head, and when he pulled them away they were dark with blood. For days afterward I was terrified to go out, terrified I’d be arrested and thrown in the Crypts. Mr. McDonnell owned a tech services firm, and was a volunteer regulator besides. I was convinced he would come after me for what I’d done to his son.

  Chris McDonnell. Phinneas Jonston. Edward Wung. Brian Scharff. I stare at the names for so long that the letters rearrange themselves into nonsense words, into baby babble. Gone Crap, Just Fine, Won’t Spill, Pick Chris, Sharp Things.

  In mid-July, when my procedure is only seven weeks away, it’s time to make my decision. I rank my choices arbitrarily, inserting numbers next to names: Phinneas Jonston (1), Chris McDonnell (2), Brian Scharff (3), Edward Wung (4).

  The boys will be submitting their rankings too; the evaluators will do their best to match preferences.

  Two days later I receive the official notification: I’ll be spending the rest of my life with Brian Scharff, whose hobbies are “watching the news” and “fantasy baseball,” and who plans to work “in the electricians’ guild,” and who can

  “someday expect to make $45,000,” a salary that “should support two to three kids.” I’ll be pledged to him before I begin Regional College of Portland in the fall. When I graduate we’ll be married.

  At night I sleep dreamlessly. In the mornings I wake to fog.

  Chapter Twelve

  In the decades before the development of the cure, the disease had become so virulent and widespread it was extraordinarily rare for a person to reach adulthood without having contracted a significant case of amor deliria nervosa (please see “Statistics, Pre—Border Era”)… Many historians have argued that pre-cure society was itself a reflection of the disease, characterized by fracture, chaos, and instability… Almost half of all marriages ended in dissolution… Incidence of drug use skyrocketed, as did alcohol-related deaths.

  People were so desperate for relief and protection from the disease they began widespread experimentation with makeshift folk remedies that were in themselves deadly, consuming concoctions of drugs assembled from common cold medications and synthesized into an extremely addictive and often fatal compound (please see “Folk Cures Through the Ages”)…

  The discovery of the procedure to cure deliria is typically credited to Cormac T. Holmes, a neuroscientist who was a member of the initial Consortium of New Scientists and one of the first disciples of the New Religion, which teaches the Holy Trinity of God, Science, and Order. Holmes was canonized several years after his death, and his body was preserved and displayed in the All-Saints’ Monument in Washington, DC (see photographs on pp. 210–212).

  — From “Before the Border,” A Brief History of the United States of America, by E. D. Thompson, p.121

  One hot evening toward the end of July I’m walking home from the Stop-N-Save when I hear someone call my name. I turn around and see Hana jogging up the hill toward me.

  “So what?” she says as she gets closer, panting a little. “You’re just going to walk by me now?”

  The obvious hurt in her voice surprises me. “I didn’t see you,” I say, which is the truth. I’m tired. Today we did inventory at the store, unshelving and reshelving packages of diapers, canned goods, rolls of paper towels, counting and recounting everything. My arms are aching, and whenever I close my eyes I see bar codes. I’m so tired I’m not even embarrassed to be out in public wearing my paint-spotted Stop-N-Save T-shirt, which is about ten sizes too big for me.

/>   Hana looks away, biting her lip. I haven’t spoken to her since that night at the party and I’m searching desperately for something to say, something casual and normal. It suddenly seems incredible to me that this was my best friend, that we could hang out for days and never run out of things to talk about, that I would come home from her house with my throat sore from laughing. It’s like there’s a glass wall between us now, invisible but impenetrable.

  I finally come up with, “I got my matches,” at the same time that Hana blurts out, “Why didn’t you call me back?”

  Both of us pause, startled, and then again start up at the same time. I say, “You called?” and Hana says, “Did you accept yet?”

  “You first,” I say.

  Hana actually seems uncomfortable. She looks at the sky, at a small child standing across the street in a baggy swimsuit, at the two men loading buckets of something into a truck down the street—everywhere but at me. “I left you, like, three messages.”

  “I never got any messages,” I say quickly, my heart speeding up. For weeks I’ve been pissed that Hana didn’t try to reach out to me after the party—pissed, and hurt. But I told myself it was better this way. I told myself Hana had changed, and she probably wouldn’t have much to say to me anymore.

  Hana is looking at me like she’s trying to judge whether I’m telling the truth.

  “Carol didn’t tell you that I called?”

  “No, I swear.” I’m so relieved I laugh. In that second, it hits me just how much I’ve missed Hana. Even when she’s mad at me, she’s the only person who’s ever really looked out for me by choice, not because of family obligation and duty and responsibility and all the other stuff that The Book of Shhh says is so important. Everyone else in my life—Carol and all my cousins, the other girls at St. Anne’s, even Rachel—have only spent time with me because they had to. “I had no idea.”

  Hana doesn’t laugh, though. She frowns. “No worries. It’s no big deal.”

  “Listen, Hana—” She cuts me off. “Like I said, it’s no big deal.” She crosses her arms and shrugs. I don’t know whether she believes me or not but it’s clear that, after all, things are different. This isn’t going to be some big, happy reunion. “So you got matched?”

  Her voice is polite now, and slightly formal, so I take on the same tone.

  “Brian Scharff. I accepted. You?”

  She nods. A muscle flexes at the corner of her mouth, almost imperceptible.

  “Fred Hargrove.”

  “Hargrove? Like the mayor?”

  “His son.” Hana nods, looks away again.

  “Wow. Congratulations.” I can’t help sounding impressed. Hana must have killed at the evaluations. Not that that’s any surprise, really.

  “Yeah. Lucky me.” Hana’s voice is completely toneless. I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic. But she is lucky, whether she knows it or not.

  And there it is: Even though we’re standing in the same patch of sun-drenched pavement, we might as well be a hundred thousand miles apart.

  You came from different starts and you’ll come to different ends: That’s an old saying, something Carol used to repeat a lot. I never really understood how true it was until now.

  This must be why Carol didn’t tell me Hana called. Three phone calls is a lot of phone calls to forget, and Carol’s pretty careful about stuff like that. Maybe she was trying to hurry up the inevitable, skip us both to the ending, the part where Hana and I aren’t friends anymore. She knows that after the procedureonce the past and all our shared history has loosened its grip on us, once we don’t feel our memories so much—we won’t have anything in common. Carol was probably trying to protect me, in her own way.

  There’s no point in confronting her about it. She won’t try and deny it. She’ll just give me one of her blank looks and rattle off a proverb from The Book of Shhh. Feelings aren’t forever. Time waits for no man, but progress waits for man to enact it.

  “You walking home?” Hana is still looking at me like I’m a stranger.

  “Yeah,” I say. I gesture to my T-shirt. “I figured I should probably get inside before I blind someone with this.”

  A smile flits over Hana’s face. “I’ll walk with you,” she says, which surprises me.

  For a while we walk in silence. We’re not that far from my house, and I’m worried we’ll go the whole way back without speaking at all. I’ve never seen Hana so quiet, and it’s making me nervous.

  “Where are you coming from?” I say, just to say something.

  Hana starts next to me, as though I’ve woken her from a dream. “East End,” she says. “I’m on a strict tanning schedule.”

  She presses her arm next to mine. It’s at least seven shades darker than mine, which is still pale, maybe a little more freckled than it is in the winter. “Not you, huh?” This time she smiles for real.

  “Um, no. Haven’t gotten down to the beach very much.” I will away a blush.

  Thankfully, Hana doesn’t notice, or if she does she doesn’t say anything. “I know. I was looking for you.”

  “You were?” I shoot her a look from the corner of my eye.

  She rolls her eyes. I’m glad to see her attitude is coming back online. “I mean, not actively. But I’ve been down there a few times, yeah. Haven’t seen you.”

  “I’ve been working a lot,” I say. I don’t add, to avoid East End, actually.

  “You still running?”

  “No. Too hot.”

  “Yeah, me too. Figured I’d give it a rest until fall.” We walk a few more paces in silence and then Hana squints at me, tilting her head. “So what else?”

  Her question catches me off guard. “What do you mean, what else?”

  “That is what I mean. I mean, what else? Come on, Lena. It’s the last summer, remember? The last summer of no responsibilities and all that good stuff. So what have you been doing? Where have you been?”

  “I—nothing. I haven’t done anything.” This was the whole point—to stay out of trouble, to do as little as possible—but saying the words makes me feel kind of sad. The summer seems to be narrowing rapidly, shrinking down to a fine point before I’ve even had a chance to enjoy it. It’s already almost August. We’ll have another five weeks of this weather before the wind starts cutting in at night and the leaves get trimmed with edges of gold. “What about you?” I say. “Good summer so far?”

  “The usual.” Hana shrugs. “I’ve been going to the beach a lot, like I said.

  Been babysitting for the Farrels some.”

  “Really?” I wrinkle my nose. Hana’s always had a thing against children.

  She’s always staying they’re too sticky and clingy, like Jolly Ranchers that have been left too long in a hot pocket.

  She makes a face. “Yeah, unfortunately. My parents decided I needed to

  ‘practice managing a household,’ or some crap like that. You know they’re actually making me work out a budget? Like figuring out how to spend sixty dollars a week is going to teach me about paying bills, or responsibility or something.”

  “Why? It’s not like you’ll even have a budget.” I don’t mean to sound bitter but there it is, the difference in our futures cutting between us again.

  We go silent after that. Hana looks away, squinting slightly against the sunlight. Maybe I’m just feeling depressed about how quickly the summer is cycling by, but memories start coming thick and fast, like a deck of cards being reshuffled in my head: Hana swinging open the bathroom door that first day in second grade, folding her arms as she blurted out, Is it because of your mom?; staying up past midnight one of the few times we were ever allowed to have a sleepover, giggling and imagining amazing and impossible people for our matches some day, like the president of the United States or the stars of our favorite movies; running side by side, legs beating in tandem on the pavement, like the rhythm of a single heartbeat; bodysurfing at the beach and buying triple cones of ice cream on the way home, arguing about whether vanilla o
r chocolate was better.

  Best friends for more than ten years and in the end it all comes down to the edge of a scalpel, to the motion of a laser beam through the brain and a flashing surgical knife. All that history and its importance gets detached, floats away like a severed balloon. In two years—in two months—Hana and I will pass each other on the streets with nothing more than a nod—different people, different worlds, two stars revolving silently, separated by thousands of miles of dark space.

  Segregation has it all wrong. We should be protected from the people who will leave us in the end, from all the people who will disappear or forget us.

  Maybe Hana’s feeling nostalgic too, because she suddenly comes out with, “Remember all our plans for this summer? All the things we said we’d finally do?”

  I don’t even skip a beat. “Break into the Spencer Prep pool—”

  “—and go swimming in our underwear,” Hana finishes.