Matched

I wonder where he is. As Xander and I plant the flowers and talk, I picture Ky working while the rest of us play, or listening to the music piped into the almost-empty auditorium. I imagine him walking through the crowds at the recreation building and taking his turn playing a game that he wil likely lose. I see him sitting in the theater watching the showing, tears in his eyes. No. I banish the images from my mind. I won’t do this anymore.

The choice is made.

I never had a choice to begin with.

Xander knows I’m not listening to him as closely as I should. He glances to make sure no one can hear us and then he says softly, “Cassia. Are you stil worried about your father?”

My father. “I don’t know,” I say. It’s the truth. I don’t know how I feel about him right now. Already the anger is giving way—almost against my wil — to more understanding, more empathy. If Grandfather had looked at me with his fiery eyes and asked me to do him one last favor, would I have been able to tel him no?

The evening slides in slowly, darkening the sky by degrees. There’s a trace of light left when the chime rings again and we stand up to survey our work. A smal breeze drifts across the grounds and the flower beds ripple red in the dusk.

“I wish we could do this every Saturday,” I say. It feels like we have created something beautiful. My hands are stained red from some of the crushed petals; and they smel of earth and newrose, a sharp-flower smel that I like in spite of my mother’s comments about the oldrose perfume being more subtle, more delicate. What’s wrong with being durable? What’s wrong being something, someone, that lasts?

Standing there looking at my work, however, I realize that al my family has ever done is sort. Never create. My father sorts old artifacts like my grandfather did; my great-grandmother sorted poems. My Farmlander grandparents plant seeds and tend crops, but everything they grow has been assigned by the Officials. Just like the things my mother grows at the Arboretum.

Just like we did here.

So I didn’t create anything after al . I did what I was told and fol owed the rules and something beautiful happened. Exactly as the Officials have promised.

“There’s the ice cream,” Xander says. The workers wheel the freezer carts along the sidewalk near the flower beds. Xander grabs me by one hand and Em by the other and pul s us into the nearest line.

It takes the workers much less time to hand out our foil cups of ice cream than it took them to pass out dinner because the ice cream is al the same. Our meals have our specialized vitamins and enrichments and have to be given to the right person. The ice cream is a nothing food.

Someone cal s out to Em and she goes over to sit by them. Xander and I find a place a little apart from everyone else. We lean our backs against the sturdy cement-block wal s of the school and stretch out our legs. Xander’s are long and his shoes are worn. He must be due for some new ones soon.

He digs his spoon into the single white scoop and sighs. “I’d plant acres of flowers for this.”

I agree. Cold and sweet and wonderful, the ice cream slides across my tongue and down my throat and into my stomach, where I swear I can feel it long after it melts. My fingers smel like soil and my lips taste like sugar and I’m so awake right now I wonder if I’l be able to sleep tonight.

Xander holds out his last spoonful toward me.

“No, it’s yours,” I say, but he insists. He is smiling and generous and it seems ungracious to push his hand away, so I don’t.

I take the spoon from him and pop the last bite into my mouth. It’s the kind of thing you could never do at a real meal—share food—but it’s acceptable tonight. The Officials wandering around supervising don’t even bat an eye. “Thanks,” I say, and then Xander’s act of kindness inexplicably makes me feel a little like crying, so I have to joke instead. “We shared a spoon. That’s practical y kissing.”

Xander rol s his eyes. “If you think that, you’ve never been kissed before.”

“Of course I’ve been kissed before.” We are teenagers, after al . Until we’re Matched, we al have crushes and flirt and play kissing games. But that’s al they are—games—because we know we’l be Matched someday. Or we’l stay Single and the games wil never end.

“Was there anything in the guidelines about kissing? Anything I should remember?” I ask, teasing Xander.

I see an answering look of mischief in his eyes as he leans a little closer. “There are no rules about kissing, Cassia. We’re Matched.”

I have looked at Xander’s face many times, but never like this. Never in the almost-dark, never with a feeling in my stomach and heart that is two parts excitement and one part nervousness. I glance around but no one looks at us, and even if they did, al they would see is two shadowy figures sitting rather close as the evening dims.

So I lean closer, too.