The Guard

CHAPTER 8

I WAITED UNTIL I WAS sure everyone was asleep before I opened America’s door. I was thrilled to find her still awake. I’d been wishing she’d wait up for me, and the way she sort of tilted her head and shifted closer made me think she’d hoped I’d be here tonight.

I left the door open as always and bent down by her bed. “How have you been?”

“All right, I suppose.” But I could tell she didn’t mean that. “Celeste showed me this article today. I’m not sure I want to get into it. I’m so tired of her.”

What was it with that girl? Did she think she could torture people and manipulate her way to a crown? Her continued presence here was one more example of Maxon’s horrible taste.

“I guess with Marlee gone, he won’t be sending anyone home for a while, huh?”

It looked like it took all of her energy to muster up a sad little shrug.

“Hey.” I moved a hand to her knee. “It’s going to be all right.”

She gave me a weak smile. “I know. I just miss her. And I’m confused.”

“Confused about what?” I asked, moving to a more comfortable position to listen.

“Everything.” Her voice was so desperate. “What I’m doing here, who I am. I thought I knew.” She fidgeted her hands, like maybe she could catch the right words. “I don’t even know how to explain it right.”

I looked at America and realized that losing Marlee and finding out the truth about Maxon’s character had exposed her to truths she didn’t want to think were out there. It sobered her up—maybe too quickly. She seemed paralyzed now, afraid of taking any kind of step because she didn’t know what would fall apart along the way. America had seen me lose my father and deal with Jemmy’s beating, and she’d watched as I struggled to keep my family fed and safe. But she’d only seen that; she hadn’t experienced it. Her family was intact, save her loser brother, and she’d never really lost anything.

Except maybe you, you idiot, a part of me accused. I shook the thought away. This moment was about her, not me.

“You know who you are, Mer. Don’t let them try to change you.”

She twitched her hand, like she might reach down and touch mine. She didn’t, though.

“Aspen, can I ask you something?” Concern still painted every corner of her face.

I nodded.

“This is kind of strange, but if being the princess didn’t mean I had to marry someone, if it was just a job someone could pick me for, do you think I could do it?”

Whatever I had been expecting, that wasn’t it. I had a hard time believing she was even still considering becoming the princess. Then again, maybe she wasn’t. This was hypothetical, and she’d said to think about it without her being linked to Maxon.

Considering the way she’d handled everything that had happened publicly, I could guess she’d feel helpless when confronted with the things that happened behind closed doors. She was great at a lot of things, but …

“Sorry, Mer. I don’t. You don’t have it in you to be as calculating as they are.” I tried to convey that I wasn’t insulting her. If anything, I was happy she wasn’t that person.

She furrowed her thin eyebrows. “Calculating? How so?”

I exhaled, trying to think of how to explain this without being too specific. “I’m everywhere, Mer. I hear things. There’s a lot of turmoil down South, in the areas with a heavy concentration of lower castes. From what the older guards say, those people never particularly agreed with Gregory Illea’s methods, and there’s been unrest down there for a long time. Rumor has it, that was part of why the queen was so attractive to the king. She came from the South, and it appeased them for a while. Not so much anymore it seems.”

She considered this. “That doesn’t explain what you meant by calculating.”

How bad could it be if I shared what I knew with her? She kept our relationship a secret for two years. I could trust her. “I was in one of the offices the other day, before all the Halloween stuff. They were mentioning rebel sympathizers in the South. I was told to see these letters to the postal wing safely. It was over three hundred letters, America. Three hundred families who were getting knocked down a caste for not reporting things or for helping someone the palace saw as a threat.”

She inhaled sharply, and I watched as dozens of scenarios unfolded in front of her eyes.

“I know. Can you imagine? What if it was you, and all you knew how to do was play the piano? Suddenly you’re supposed to know how to do clerical work, how to find those jobs even? It’s a pretty clear message.”

Her concern shifted. “Do you … Does Maxon know?”

That was a good question. “I think he has to. He’s not that far off from running the country himself.”

She nodded and let that settle in on top of all the other new things she had learned about her sort-of boyfriend.

“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” I pleaded. “A slip like that could cost me my job.” And so much more, I added in my head.

“Of course. It’s already forgotten.” Her tone was light, trying to mask the weight of her worries. Her efforts made me smile.

“I miss being with you, away from all this. I miss our old problems,” I lamented. What wouldn’t I give to be irritated about her making me dinner now?

“I know what you mean,” she said with a giggle. A real one. “Sneaking out of my window was so much better than sneaking around a palace.”

“And scrounging to find a penny for you was better than having nothing to give you at all.” I tapped on the jar by her bed. I always took that as a good sign, that she kept it nearby before I was even in the palace. “I had no idea you’d saved them all until the day before you left,” I added, remembering in awe the weight of them being poured into my palms.

“Of course I did!” she exclaimed proudly. “When you were away, they were all I had to hold on to. Sometimes I used to pour them over my hand on the bed, just to scoop them up again. It was nice to have something you touched.”

She was as bad as I was. I never took anything from her to keep as my own, but I stored up every moment like it was a physical thing. I’d thumb through memories whenever things were still. I spent more time with her than she ever knew.

“What did you do with all of them?” she wondered.

I smiled. “They’re at home, waiting.” I’d had a small store of money to marry America saved up before she left. These days I had my mom set aside a portion of each paycheck for me, and I was sure she knew what I was putting it toward. But my most precious corner of that stash was the pennies.

“For what?”

For a decent wedding. For actual rings. For a home of our own. “That, I cannot say.”

I’d tell her everything soon enough. We were still working our way back to each other.

“Fine, keep your secrets,” she said, pretending to be annoyed. “And don’t worry about not giving me anything. I’m just happy you’re here, that you and I can at least fix things, even if it’s not what it used to be.”

I frowned. Were we that far from what we once were? So far that she needed to address it? No. Not to me. We were still those people back in Carolina, and I needed her to remember that.

I wanted to give her the world, but all I had at the moment were the clothes on my back. I looked down, plucked off a button, and held it up to her.

“I literally have nothing else to give you, but you can hold on to this—something I’ve touched—and think of me anytime. And you can know that I’m thinking of you, too.”

She took the tiny, golden button from my hand, and stared at it like I’d given her the moon. Her lip trembled and she breathed slowly, as if she might cry. Maybe I’d done this all wrong.

“I don’t know how to do this right now,” she confessed. “I feel like I don’t know how to do anything. I … I haven’t forgotten you, okay? It’s still here.”

She put her hand on her chest, and I saw her fingers dig into her skin, trying to calm whatever was happening inside.

Yes, we still had a long way to go, but I knew it wouldn’t feel that way if we were in it together.

I smiled, needing nothing more. “That’s enough for me.”