Dark World: The Surface Girl (6 page)

             
Breathe, dammit! BREATHE!
             
My self-commands were minimally effective but at least I was trying. My lungs seared as I struggled to draw air into them. It was as if my esophagus had swollen, leaving only the tiniest possible passage and air had to make it through a tunnel no larger than the size of a pin in order to fill my lungs. My body simply needed more air quicker than I was able to take it in. I closed my eyes. Maybe the air in the passageway was poison. Maybe I was dying. This might be
it
. These could be my final moments. I tried to inhale again but it took forever for the air to pass through. My lungs needed it NOW. How did we take such a simple thing for granted? We breathed in and out every second of every day throughout our whole lives and never understood how precious each breath was. I barely registered arms curling around my shoulders. “Ruby, you have to breathe!” I recognized Reese's voice but I couldn't respond. The harder I tried to inhale the more fruitless my efforts seemed to be.
I was going to die.
“You're having a panic attack. You have to listen to me. Listen to my voice, okay? Breathe slower. Take a long, deep breath.” Was he blind, or crazy?
I COULDN'T BREATH!
His hands trembled on my shoulders but I couldn't concern myself with the fact that he was worried about me – not when I knew I was dying. “Okay – look. Don't hate me but I have to calm you down. I have to shift your attention.” I barely heard a word he said. His palm pressed against my cheek and turned my head. Instantly and out of nowhere, Reese's warm lips pressed against my own.

              I daydreamed about this feeling before. I used to kiss the back of my hand in the privacy of my chambers and imagine I was kissing Reese, something I knew could never and would never happen in real life. Even so, just the mere thought of it, the imaginary impossible kiss from the only person I had ever wanted in that way sent my body into a frenzy. It felt like I was being tickled, but all over my skin in every place at once. Sometimes I would then run my fingertips across my forearm and the feeling would increase. I would shudder and my back would arch, but all too quickly, fear would rush in and replace the tingles. It wasn't that I was afraid of what I was feeling, rather, I was afraid I would never feel it for real and the more I let my imagination wake my body up, the more disappointed I would be when my mate kissed me – and I felt nothing.

              Reese's breath softly rushed past my lips and all I could compare it to were the stories Grandpa Logan used to tell me about the tide from the ocean rushing over the tops of his feet. My heartbeat definitely did not slow but it was no longer blind panic that kept it pumping madly, it was desire. My lids half-closed over my eyes and my chin tilted upward as I pressed my lips back against his own. My body responded in ways I could not possibly command it to in my own consciousness. The tiniest noise escaped between my lips and the vibration moved from my mouth to his. We were connected, my movements becoming his and his becoming mine. He pillowed my upper lip between his own and I sighed again, moving closer, wanting more – but he pulled away. As suddenly as this amazing, earth-moving feeling of escape began, it was over.
              The cloud of yearning I was cushioned on for only a few mere moments disappeared and I crashed back down to the hard, cold floor. Fury replaced lust. How could Reese do that to me? How could he kiss me like that, bring me to a new height, allow me to feel what was – and should have stayed – only in my imagination and then take it away just as thoughtlessly as it was given? And then I realized –

             
I was breathing.
             
My heart still raced, my mind still flashed snippets of colors and scenes and fleeting possibilities behind my closed eyes,
but I was breathing.
My breaths were short; a quick and heavy inhale and a forcefully expelled exhale,
but I was breathing.

             
I opened my eyes. Reese's face was redder than I had ever seen it before. He looked like he dove head first into a barrel of tomato juice. His eyes darted around wildly, refusing to settle or even come close to looking into my own. He pressed his palms on the ground and scooted away from me like I was poison. “You were having a panic attack – I – I had to do that,” he muttered with a guilty tone. Emotions became a live army and I was the target. They rushed at me with bayonets drawn, screaming, raging, swearing to take my blood to the grave with them as they clashed into each other and battled without mercy. I closed my eyes again and concentrated on breathing – it
was
easier. My lungs were actually taking in air now, the flow wasn't being forced through a pinhole.
              It hadn't been the passageway, after all. I wasn't dying. Reese was probably right. I'd never had a panic attack before so how was I supposed to know?

              This was all too much. I couldn't process it. I couldn't sort it out. I couldn't figure out where the lies stopped and the truth began – so I ran. I ran from the little girl who was probably a mole for the government but might possibly be from the surface somehow. I ran from Reese, who claimed he kissed me to save me from my panic attack but I didn't believe that was true, either. He had kissed me because he wanted to and that made everything I was already feeling for him that much more devastating. It was painful enough to harbor unrequited feelings that could never be acted upon but it was twice as painful to know that he might feel that same way, and yet we could still never be together. His kiss opened a doorway to how amazing and uplifting being with him could feel but I would never be able to walk through it. How could I even look at him now that I knew he wanted from me the same thing I wanted from him?
              What about my father?
Who was he
? Did I know him at all? Was he anything like the man I thought he was? How many secrets was he keeping, and why? Did Mom know that he was breaking Doctrine? My mind said no, she couldn’t possibly, but what did I know? It seemed like so many things I had been pressured to accept as truth were actually lies and I didn't know who to trust anymore.

              I stopped running once I reached the door to my barracks. I pressed my palm on the wall near the door and let my head sink forward. My breathing was labored again but I knew this time it was because of running, not because I was dying. I closed my eyes so I couldn't get distracted by anything in the visual world. My heartbeat thundered deep within my ear canals. Blood rushed through my veins as if it had an urgent place to be. I trembled. I couldn't walk into my barracks like this, I knew my dissevered state would terrify my parents but I couldn't just stand here forever, either. Reese might be not far behind and I couldn't speak to him or face him again. At least not right now. Preferably not ever. My sixteenth birthday was turning out to be the worst day of my life.
              After a few minutes, I stood up straight and rubbed my palms over my face. I concentrated on my breathing and willed my heart to slow.
             
Everything's fine. You’re fine. Nothing happened today. It's like any other day – at least until tonight. No – don’t think about tonight. Just focus on now and remember everything is fine. You can do this.

             
Lying to myself was helping, at least a little bit. I was calming down. I let my chest visibly rise and fall with each breath until I was semi-confident that I could convincingly appear normal when I walked through the door. I ran my fingers through my hair in an attempt to smooth out any tangles that may have happened during my experience

             
NO! Don't think about that!
             
and pulled my shoulders back. I pressed my thumb to the print-plate. A single beep followed and the door to my barracks opened. I walked inside as casually as possible and was instantly greeted by my mother. “There you are, good!” She paused and tilted her head as her eyes grazed over me. I shifted uncomfortably. “Where's whatever you had to pick up?”

             
CRAP!
             
“Oh, I – I couldn’t find it so I think my lab partner must have taken it. I'll sort it out Monday morning.” Mom narrowed her eyes.

              “Learning is important, Ruby. Next year you'll have to decide how you want to contribute and that will become the rest of your life.” I'd heard this lecture so many times before that my mother's familiar words were now water rolling off of hard plastic. Still, I obediently nodded because that was the response I knew would put her at ease.

              “I know, Mom. I'm considering my options, I promise. I'm actually leaning toward working in the artificial gardens like Dad does.” Mom raised her eyebrows. I didn’t blame her, I had never mentioned having that desire before – and I still didn’t have it – but I had to say something to ease her worry.
              “Speaking of your father, he's in the living room and he wants to talk with you. I have to pick up your cake so I'll be back shortly.” Mom moved some hair away from my forehead with her finger and then kissed it softly before brushing past me and heading for the door. My throat tightened. Dad wanted to talk to me? What about? He couldn’t possibly know what I discovered today, could he? And even if he did, it would be incredibly risky to say anything about it even within the confines of our own barracks. I chewed on my lower lip and picked at my cuticles. I wanted to run again but there was nowhere to go. All I wanted to do since the moment I woke up today was run. First I wanted to run from tonights inevitable “date” with Connor, then from a strange little girl whose very existence challenged everything I thought was real, then from Reese who betrayed my feelings by kissing me when I never wanted to know what that would feel like, and now from my own father because even if the little girl was mole, she still had part of his shirt and that meant he wasn't the person I assumed he was all my life. I turned my back to the living room and wiped at my face again as I tried to choke back more tears.

              Sometimes I felt much older than my physical age. Maybe I thought too much of my intellect, or maybe I was simply an “old soul” like Grandpa Logan used to say but in this moment I felt like nothing more than a child.

              How could I look at my father and not ask him for the truth? How could I pretend nothing had changed when
everything
had changed? Was pretending everything was “normal” the right thing to do? Should I forget about the little girl and put her out of my mind? I would have to refuse to see or speak to Reese for the next two years of my life. How would I explain that to Willow? I supposed I could tell her the partial truth; that Reese kissed me but then she would be furious with him and that wouldn't be fair.

              Who was I kidding? There was no possible way I could forget about the girl and my father's torn shirt. I knew I would feel haunted every second of my life until I knew and understood the truth, whatever it may be. My shoulders slumped in defeat and I slowly turned. I trudged into the living room with a downturned chin and heavy feet as if being urged to move forward while attached to a string. I plopped down on the couch next to my father and folded my hands into my lap. I still couldn't look at him. “What's wrong?” His gentle, concerned voice asked me. My fingertips pressed into my palms. I bit my lower lip.
              “Dad, how well do I know you?” I had to be careful with my wording.
So
careful. He shifted his weight.

              “What do you mean?” My muscles tensed.

              “Do you have secrets?” He didn't respond right away. His silence was deafening.
              “I suppose everybody does.” So he wasn't denying it, at least. That was something. That was a start. I sighed heavily.

              “How did you tear your shirt?” More silence followed. His brows furrowed.

              “Ruby, where are you taking this?” It was my turn to sit in silence. I couldn't say it out loud. Besides having trouble finding the words, I had to worry about the possibility of our conversation being monitored.

              “Today, I realized there might be things about you that I don’t know. I'm sorry about that. I should know you better.” Still more silence.

              “Ruby, is this about tonight?” My father leaned forward. “I know you're nervous. I know you wish you had more time. When I was sixteen, I didn't think I was ready to meet your mom but I saw her and wow, my feelings were instant. I knew she was the one. I think you just need to take a leap of faith and trust that this is for the best.” I half-smiled, not because I was warming up to his words of advice but because he thought he was being clever by shifting the conversation onto a topic he knew was vulnerable to me and away from having to tell me the truth. It wasn't working, though. Right now I couldn't get the girl out of my mind. Dad was a smooth talker, this is something I hadn't realized before. How many times in the past had he used this tactic of diversion on me without my knowledge? The truth had power. The more I knew, the more I noticed. I was ready to face him. I shifted my body toward him and looked at him with calm, patient but firm eyes. I had grown up some today. I wasn’t quite the same girl who woke up this morning. Ruby R-1046 may have spent her first sixteen years assuming her father was nothing more than a strong, caring provider but now I knew he was a man of secrets. I wanted to know what they were. No – I
needed
to know.