CHAPTER 31 #3
I let out a dry laugh, only half-joking when I say the course should be defunded and scrapped. Edmund wouldn’t know how absurd the lectures are. He chose Intro to Genetic Engineering instead.
He rolls his shoulders as he listens, as if even when focused, his muscles can’t quite stay still. The current builds around us, and the rough, choppy waves keep driving our boards apart. Edmund places a hand on the edge of mine, anchoring it beside his to keep us close enough to talk.
“So which class do you actually like?” he asks.
“Political Theory and Governance.”
His smile fades, his gaze drifting past me.
“You don’t like politics?” I press.
“I wouldn’t say that. My father was a politician, and so is my brother. I respect it and see its value. I just don’t think I’d be any good at it.”
The rhythm of his tone is so rehearsed that, for the first time, I sense he’s lying to me.
Politics is one of the few arenas where you can’t straddle the line.
The laws you support or oppose clearly reveal your beliefs.
If Edmund ever became a Blue Representative, he’d be forced to choose between high and low.
Either he’s not ready to make that decision, or he wants to avoid it altogether.
“What do you want to do, then?”
Edmund angles his board into a rising swell, and I follow, gliding over the crest behind him. “Not sure yet, but I hope I’ll be useful. That’s why I haven’t picked a major. I want to get it right.”
The response reminds me of Dad. He says he entered politics because it was a useful career.
Yet when Edmund says the same words, I think he shouldn’t have to make that kind of sacrifice.
He’s already making one by agreeing to an arranged marriage, a lifetime bound to a woman he doesn’t love.
So I hope he gets the rest, at least a small piece of the life he wants.
“Are you going to major in politics?” he asks.
“No. I mean… I’m actually not sure yet.”
He smiles. “I hope you do. You’d be good at it.”
His certainty catches me off guard. “Why?”
“Because, at least in general, I think you like people. And if you’re going to care about their futures, you’ve got to care about them first.”
That’s not what I expected. But what comes next surprises me even more.
“And because you don’t confuse diplomacy with compromise. Even if you light a few fires, even if you lose your way for a while, I don’t think you’ll ever betray yourself.”
Edmund glances at me sidelong through his dripping hair, still smiling, still holding my board close.
For a single, unbearable second, I hate him.
His voice. His face. His smile.
Whether I want it or not, he’s slipping under my skin so deeply that I don’t know if I can dig him out. The only thing I know is that I need to get away from him. Now. Before he notices my restlessness and figures out what I’m desperately trying not to feel.
If he ever realizes how I feel about him, he’ll be wrong about me.
I’ll have already betrayed myself.
“Thank you, Edmund,” I say, tugging at my earring. “I’m getting too cold. I’m gonna head back.”
I turn, ready to paddle away, when I realize how far we’ve drifted. The bonfire on the beach flickers like a tiny flag of light in the distance. We’ve already passed the reef where I saw the seashells and the swim-zone buoy, which means we’re only half a mile from the rim of the energy shield.
“Shit,” Edmund says, his voice already distant across the water. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we’d gone past the buoy. Can I help?”
I strain to see him through the dull bars of moonlight. “Help how?”
There’s a rush of water as he paddles closer, and then his hand appears, held out toward me.
Oh.
I know I shouldn’t take it, especially when I can swim back on my own.
Even if the night-vision overlay on my Bond is almost useless, the waves aren’t strong enough to drag me under.
But if I refuse, I’ll lose the chance to touch him.
And as much as I want to fight my feelings, I’m aching to know what it’s like… just once.
“All right,” I say.
Edmund leans off his board, slips an arm around my waist, and lifts me onto the tail behind him. I hesitate, my hands hovering uncertainly above his back, before finally resting them against the slick fabric of his wetsuit.
“Shyness like that will land you in the water,” he says, a laugh in his voice.
“I wasn’t sure if—”
“You’re allowed. Both hands.”
I try around his waist first, but it’s too broad for a firm hold, so I reach higher, wrapping both arms around his neck. My pulse surges at the feeling of him, from the warm ridges of his throat to the prickle of his wet hair brushing my wrists.
Edmund leans forward and begins to paddle, cutting cleanly through the water with long, rapid strokes.
I match his rhythm, my body swaying with his as he guides us through the swell.
His head stays turned, scanning the horizon, his eyes tracking something I can’t see until a larger set begins to rise behind us.
I feel it in his body first, a moment of stillness as he reads the waves. He lets the first one roll beneath us, then pivots and angles the board, lining us up with the second.
His arms dig in harder now, propelling the board forward until the wave lifts beneath us.
The rise is sudden, almost like a push-up.
He plants his back foot near the tail and springs upright, pulling me with him.
My feet flail in the rush of wind until I manage to clamp my knees around the sides of his waist.
He stiffens at the contact but stays steady, riding the wave.
“Have you ever done this before?” I ask, my words nearly lost in the surf.
“No,” he says. “But I’ve got a good reason not to fall.”
The wave steepens, rising beneath us as it begins to curl. Edmund drops into a sharp bottom turn, knees bent as he carves along the face with fluid, rocking motions that keep the board locked in the pocket.
“Your turn,” he shouts.
Before I can ask what he means, he reaches back, peels my arms from his neck, and pulls me around his body to the front of the board. I stumble as I land, feet slipping on the wet surface, but I drop into a crouch and grip the rails to steady myself.
Then I feel his hands at my waist, guiding our balance as the board cuts down the line, the nose perfectly angled to hold us in the belly of the wave. I feel his breath against my neck, and somewhere near my ear, wild laughter grows louder as a spray of saltwater hits our faces.
I don’t want the wave to end. If I could stop time—freeze a single moment, steal it, live inside it forever—it would be this one. This wave, with this man.
Edmund’s heartbeat pounds against my back as we glide through the barrel, driven by adrenaline. Mine pounds too, but not for the same reason. My heart pounds because of him.
We ride the wave past the break, the board hurtling forward until the swell collapses beneath us in a rush of whitewater. By the time we reach the shore, both of us are laughing, the foam swirling around our legs as the board drifts to a stop in the shallows.
The moment our feet touch the sand, Edmund lets me go and swings off the board. The cut is too abrupt, like the moment I wanted to hold onto has been torn away. My smile falters, though his doesn’t. He wipes saltwater from his face and crouches in the sand, grinning like we’ve won something.
“Well?” he asks.
“I’d trust you to rescue me if I were drowning,” I say.
He laughs. “Here, sure. If you keep hoverboarding on the Luminescent Lake and fall in, I might not be fast enough.”
“Yeah, you would.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, you lose at things… poker, shot duels. But not where it counts.”
Edmund’s brow furrows in surprise, as if I just handed him a flower—beautiful, but too rarely given for him to know how to hold. He clears his throat, gestures to the board, and says, “You want to go again?”
Yes. If I could, I’d surf with him all night. But I remind myself that no matter how I feel about him, no matter how easy it is to lose myself in moments like this, no version of us gets to stay on the board when the wave ends.
“If I stay out there any longer, the ocean’s gonna have a new iceberg,” I say, sliding off. “But thank you for the ride.”
I wade to shore and head for the bonfire, forcing myself not to run. Edmund calls out behind me, something about a seashell, but I don’t turn back. A strand of seaweed coils around my ankle, and I kick it off, then kick myself, too.
By the time I reach the fire, Jack is already stamping it out.
Charlotte and Dickie are huddled in the hovercar, pressed against the heater vents, while she scolds him for programming his Pinkie to smoke cigarettes.
“You’ll regret not treating that humanoid better when the machines eventually turn on us. ”
Dickie smirks. “Maybe I’ll be the one who makes them smart enough to turn.”
I grab a towel and dry off with quick, mechanical strokes, wishing I could scrub away what I’m feeling just as easily.
The only comfort is that we’re leaving. At least for tonight, I’ve worn out my ability to keep lying.
I don’t speak much over the next few days.
I drift through the world half-absent, sinking so deep into my thoughts that I even zone out during my Political Theory & Governance lecture.
How did I let this happen? My heart used to be a familiar place, where I knew exactly who and what I loved.
Now parts of it feel like a stranger I shouldn’t be speaking to, but one I can’t stop listening to all the same.
Where I thought I could only ever love fencing, I find myself drawn to politics.
And where I thought I could only hate Blues, I find myself falling for one.