Circles

Chapter Eight

        I wake up early; no one else is up yet. But when I go downstairs, Sam is already in the living room. 

        “Good morning!” she chirps upon seeing me.

        “Morning,” I say on my way to the kitchen. I make myself some eggs and sit down to eat them. Sam comes over and sits at the table with me.

        “So,” she starts, sipping coffee. “How are you liking your Circle?”

        “It’s alright,” I lie.

        She pauses to take another sip of her coffee. It smells so good I’m tempted to get a cup, even though I’ve never been a fan of the stuff. “Are you making friends?” she asks.

        I audibly laugh. “Oh, come on,” I say. She raises her eyebrows in confusion. “Don’t play dumb! You have to have at least some clue as to what’s been going on. You’re here all the time!” I say, trying to sound nonchalant.

        “Alex, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

        “You couldn’t be more full of it if you tried,” I mumble, shoving eggs in my mouth and looking away from her.

        Sam sighs. “Alright, okay, fine.” I ignore her. “I do know what’s going on,” she says.

        “And it didn’t occur to you to step in?”

        “Excuse me?”

        "It didn’t occur to you to stop Mike from pushing me down yesterday? Or to stop April and Jess and them to stop ridiculing me?” I accuse.

         She hesitates, forming her response. “Okay, I’m going to tell you something, but you can never pass it on, alright?”

            “Okay?” I say, unsure.

            “We aren’t allowed to help in situations like that. They tell us that we have to let you guys grow out of it on your own, or suffer the consequences of each other if you don’t. That’s why I try to not be in the same room as you guys when you’re doing something that could end in a conflict. Some Adults have no problem just sitting there and watching, but I’m not like that.”

            I turn the information over and over in my head before speaking. Something jumps out at me. “They?”

            “What?”

            “You said ‘they’ tell you to do that. Who’s ‘they’?” I ask.

            “The Circle system leaders, the government, whatever you want to call them. Our superiors.”

            “But what if a group got really bad? What if someone tried to kill someone or something? It had to have happened before,” I say.

            “It has,” says Sam.

            “What happened?”

            “They just called it ‘natural selection’. Didn’t even bat an eye. It was horrible.”

            “Didn’t anyone find out?” I ask.

            “Well, yeah, but what could they do? It’s tragic, but it happens, unfortunately.”

            “Yeah,” I say as Mike comes down the stairs, and as if on cue, Sam leaves the room. When Mike sits down at the table with a bowl of cereal I want to run away, but I know I can’t do that, so I just stare down at my plate.

            “What, you can’t even look at me?”

            I stare at him and open my mouth to say something back, but I decide he isn’t worth it. Finishing my eggs, I pick up my plate and go to the kitchen to wash it. A minute later he’s standing behind me, waiting for the sink. I hurry up and finish so I can get away from him. When I’m done I turn to leave the room, but he puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me. I shrug it away immediately.

            “Wait,” he says, then pauses, staring at the ground for what seems like an eternity. He finally looks up. “Do you hate me?” he asks. His eyes are big and innocent, and he actually looks like if I say the word “yes”, he’ll literally fall apart, though I don’t know why. I say nothing and walk away.

As everyone begins to come down for breakfast, I decide to go get ready for our grocery store field trip. I pass April and Jess on the stairs, and April intentionally shoves me into the railing with her shoulder. “Hello to you, too,” I mutter. I go upstairs and put on a blouse and jeans. I must take longer than I think, because when I come back downstairs everyone’s almost ready to go. Sam looks out the window.

“The bus is here!” she says. I get on and sit next to Liz.