False Hearts (False Hearts #1)(46)

I don’t trust him. His name is Clive Ranganathan, and he’s tall, with dark hair slicked back with too much gel. He’s supposed to be a pretty good lawyer, but I can tell he doesn’t give a crap about me. He thinks I’m guilty, I can see it, so why would he break a sweat really trying to set me free? It’d be bad for his reputation if he did—every guilty f*cker out there would beg for him to take their case before they were hanged by the system. Not that there are many, these days, in the Shining Example of San Francisco.

Not yet, at least.

It’s more fun to defend the innocents. Mr. Ranganathan is already slumming it more than he wants to, having to defend someone who might be wrapped up in the Ratel.

He went through his plan and I sort of half listened to him. He nodded his head as he talked, his big hands flipping over his tablet, showing the evidence against me. There’s more than last time.

After a bit, I stopped listening altogether. I started humming “A Hazy Shade of Winter.” He was offended and left. I don’t care. He can’t do anything for me. The only person who can save me is Taema. And I still don’t know if she’s trying to, or if I want her to.

I don’t want to write any more about the present. It’s depressing, though the past is getting depressing too.

Looking back is almost scarier than looking forward.

*

We felt better after a couple of days of rest and we were able to leave the Wellness Cabin and go home. Our parents were really relieved, to say the least. They cooked us our favorite food that first night: amaranth with vegetables and chicken, baked apples for dessert.

Yes, it was real chicken, not the vat-grown stuff everyone eats in the city. We raised them. Killed them. Ate them.

We were all quiet at the dinner table, not wanting to talk about what we all knew: that it was only going to get worse from here.

We’d known since we were pretty little that we might not live that long. But it was sobering to have to actually face that.

I felt so bad for Mom and Dad, though. They were the best parents you could ask for, really. Some of our friends fought with theirs all the time, but we hardly ever fought with ours. They talked to us as if we were equals, asked us our opinions. Even writing about them right now I’m tearing up like crazy. I miss them most out of everything back in the Hearth. I miss all of us sitting by the fire on cold days, me and Taema sewing clothes, or Taema reading and me chattering away to Dad. Dad and I were closer, and Taema and Mom were closer. Which seems sort of funny, now that I think about it, since obviously we spent the same amount of time with both of them.

I wish they’d have come with us.

They were both so worried for us. It hurt to look at them, as they tried to keep the knowledge that they knew we were dying from their faces. They were bad at it.

*

The next day we had to go to Confession for Mana-ma. We’d already missed a week. Neither of us wanted to go, but then we’d never really enjoyed it. Nobody likes to have to list all the ways they’re defective.

Mana-ma didn’t preach it that way, though. It’s supposed to be exposing who you are fully, both the bad and the good, acknowledging it and then letting it go and moving forward. She seemed more concerned with the bad. Like most people.

Before that treat, we had Meditation. It was our first session since the tablet died. I really didn’t want to do it, and I could tell Taema didn’t either. Even if we said we were still feeling bad, though, they’d wonder why we were missing it. So off we went.

I remember that Meditation so clearly. Lying in the meadow, the day clear and perfect. California weather through and through.

Almost everyone was already gathered there by the time we huffed and puffed our way down to the dandelion-studded meadow. Mana-ma waited by the path. She rubbed the fingers of her left hand against her thumb, something she did when impatient. Another bitter pill to go down our throats. We felt the “zap” that meant the drug had taken effect. The colors all grew so much brighter.

Dimly, I wondered if we should be taking whatever Mana-ma’s drug was, with our heart. Surely our heart could have been an excuse to get out of that day? Then I was so high I didn’t care in the least. We stumbled down and joined the ring of people.

Mana-ma stood in the center of the circle, and we all began humming as the drugs took a stronger hold. We reached out for each other as Mana-ma listed the images for us to create in our minds. A butterfly’s wings. The petals of a rose. The sky, dark with clouds, fresh rain falling.

There was a flash, pure and bright, that traveled through the ring. The pain that had been lessening with each Meditation returned. We writhed and panted, and I wondered if Mana-ma enjoyed it.

“Yes,” I heard Mana-ma say, even though she was speaking so quietly no one should have been able to hear her.

Another flash, and we weren’t in the meadow anymore. We were standing in a forest. The trees weren’t redwoods like the ones in Muir Woods. The bark was all silver, the leaves blue and purple. The sky roiled a deep green. All the members of the Hearth stood in this weird forest, looking about, confused. In the middle was Mana-ma. Triumphant.

“Mardel,” she said. “Come forward.”

He came forward, blinking, dazed.

“You have often spoken to me in Confession of your struggle with drink,” she said.

Mardel’s cheeks, always red from alcohol, flushed deeper. Way to break the sanctity of Confession, Mana-ma.