“I still can’t believe it’s real,” he admitted as she leaned her forehead against his shoulder.
“Neither can I.” She pushed away a little and looked up to see his face. “I love you, Gabriel,” she whispered, and his heart stopped. He felt as if his body had forgotten how to make it beat.
He kissed her until he was desperate for air, then cupped her face in his hands, at a loss.
“Gabriel?” she said, gently prying his hands off her cheeks.
“I love you,” he said, astonished to hear himself say it out loud, at last. She smiled and swayed against him, making him gasp audibly, then she took his hand.
“So then come home with me,” she said and led him off the bridge.
CHAPTER TWO
ASA LEANED BACK AGAINST THE ANCIENT oak, gazing up through the green canopy of trees. I can’t wait to get out of this place. A shallow stream rippled slowly past a few feet away. As kids this had been the usual meeting spot, where Asa and his best friend Eli took turns crossing the water on a fallen log that served as a perilous bridge. Here they both were, again.
“Asa?” Eli prompted. “What’s with you today? I just asked what you’re going to do next.”
Asa had a sudden impulse to tell him. Tomorrow, I am leaving this place to go and live in the city. I’m done with this tiny, repetitious world of yours. From now on, every day will be new: new people, new places—new things I haven’t even imagined yet. Eli was the only one Asa would really miss when he was gone.
Like Asa, Eli was clever but restless. They were both athletic; their talents lay not in brute strength but in agility, speed, and daring. Asa was notorious by the time Eli came along, the blond daredevil with eyes blue as the Chancellor’s. When he befriended the new doctor’s son, his parents—everyone’s parents—had hoped the small, bookish boy would prove a good influence on Asa.
They had been wrong.
“What am I gonna do? I’m gonna move to Horizon and never come back to Rosewood!” Asa said with the dry wit he had cultivated over the years. “Come on, I’ve got to go to my party.”
“I thought you said it was your parents’ party,” Eli teased.
“Yeah, well, it’s their party, but it’s my birthday!”
He took off at a run through the woods, down the hill toward the town, not caring if his friend was keeping up. As he reached the town square, he skidded to a stop, nearly colliding with his nineteen-year-old sister, Hannah.
“Asa!” she cried, cheeks flushed with excitement. Her light brown hair had slipped free of its braid.
Asa put on a mock-exasperated face. “What is it now?”
“Happy birthday!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. Asa laughed and hugged her back.
“You said that this morning! Has the party started without me?”
Hannah shrugged. “It’s all Mom and Dad’s friends so far.” She grinned. “Did Mom and Dad give it to you yet?”
“Give me what?” Asa pretended ignorance. Hannah rolled her eyes.
“You know what! Oh, come on, Asa, you’re twenty-one! Aren’t you even a little excited? Your life is about to officially start!”
Asa shook his head, blond hair falling across his forehead. He brushed it back. “I like to think my life started twenty-one years ago,” he said dryly. “Come on, everybody’s over there.”
They started toward the party. Asa’s parents, Sarah and Isaac, had gathered a few of their friends around the set of tables in a corner of Rosewood’s picturesque town square, and everyone had brought food. Asa’s friends Seth, Noah, Marc, and Zeke were off to one side, near the group but not part of it. His mother spotted him and waved, and he felt a sudden clench of regret.
She’s going to be heartbroken.
Asa ran ahead of Hannah and swooped his mother into a hug, lifting her off the ground and swinging her around. She was wearing a long green skirt, and it swirled prettily around her ankles, the shiny, hand-sewn details catching the light and sparkling.
“Put me down!” she protested, laughing as he obeyed.
“Me next!” his father joked, putting an arm around his wife’s shoulders.
“I’ll do it,” Asa warned.
“Isaac, don’t tempt fate,” Asa’s mother said, and it was as good as a dare.
Asa kissed his mother on the cheek, grabbed his substantial father around the waist, and lifted him off the pavement. He set him down again almost immediately, panting. His mother was laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes.
“Are you laughing at my son, Sarah?” Isaac said with a grin.
“No, I’m laughing at my husband,” she managed to say, still giggling, and Isaac kissed her forehead. Asa smiled, feeling he was on the edge of something new.
Something inside him seemed to be whispering, This is the last day. Treasure all of it.
He turned in a small circle, taking in the square: the pristine white monolith at the center that seemed to reflect the sunlight, brightening a day that was already bright; the trees, still young by the standard of trees, thick and green with the first leaves of the season; and the lush verdant fields beyond the square. Even the drones seemed lively, swooping around the square or hovering in place, always watching.
I can’t be nostalgic for a place I haven’t left yet! Asa chided himself. Yet nostalgia was not the right word—it was something like the opposite. He was twenty-one, and despite his denial, Hannah had captured his feeling precisely. My life is about to start.
Everything he had ever resented about Rosewood had ceased to matter; the insularity, the sheer smallness of the place would never bind or constrict him again.
Asa looked across the square at the little crowd gathered around the vegetable stand, picking up tomatoes and squashes, comparing and discussing them.
Most of them have their own gardens. They go to the vegetable stand for the gossip as much as for the food.
It was the kind of thought that once would have made him despair, to imagine a lifetime spent inventing little tasks and little chatter, spinning whole years out in measured circles. What would there be to look back on when it came time to leave for Sanctuary? Not a lifetime but a single day, repeated over and over until you scarcely noticed the rising and setting of the sun. But now he was free of it.
“Asa!” Hannah called.
He rolled his eyes before turning around. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my own name called so many times in one day.
“Come on, there’s something for you!” she called.
He trotted back to the group. Eli stood next to Asa’s mother. His own parents were sitting at one of the tables. Sarah held out a small box. It was a slim white rectangle with the State seal stamped on it. In the lower corner a small label read “Asa Isaac Rosewood, 21 Yrs.”
He grinned.
“Asa,” his mother said, “twenty-one years ago, you came into our community, and for twenty-one years you have been cherished and educated, taught to live by the Social Contract that binds us all. Now you are fully a member of adult society.”
“Thanks, Mom!” Asa said and made a grab for the package. Sarah snatched it away before he could grasp it.
“I’m not done. Now you have the means to live your life however you wish, within the bounds of the Social Contract.”