Take Me Tomorrow

Chapter 16: It Was A Lie

"Why are you telling me this?" I managed. I didn't have the courage to ask him how she was. Not yet.

"You know why," he said, but I didn't. Not really.

"Phelps isn't going to catch you today," I reassured, sitting down to meet his eyes. He didn't look back at me. "My dad won't let him."

"You know this isn't even Kansas, right?" he continued, ignoring my attempt to comfort him. He knew as well as I that I couldn't guarantee anything. "This isn't Kansas."

"Kansas?" I repeated. The word was a distinct memory residing in my elementary school days. The regions originally made up the United States, but the country fell into economic oppression. Recession after recession. Scandal after scandal. Deadbeat presidents, one after the next. Then climate disaster and outbreaks of disease, new and old, happened all over the world. Tensions peaked. A military draft was instituted in preparation for a world war that never happened. Instead, we created our own war. Internal conflict became just as bad as external, and then Mexico expanded its borders over the southern states. Some said they took over, others claimed we were so broke we had no choice but to sell the land. Either way, that's when the remaining states gained independence. Regional officers were put in place, and the country was redefined according to the area's resources. The states were called regions, and the regions now made up the main government, which was called the State, the center of it all, the hub of trade transportation. The region surrounding it—Topeka Region—was named after Kansas, a state that no longer existed. It didn't seem that different to me.

"It's just a name," I said.

"It's not," he said, tapping his forehead. He almost hit his stitches. "That's what they want you to think. This is Missouri. They should've named the region after Jefferson or St. Louis."

I didn't understand.

Noah moved so fast I barely comprehended it. He crossed the room and grabbed my hands with his shaking fingers. "They did it on purpose. They want us to be confused. They don't want us to understand where we are or where we should be. They want us to be so confused that we don't even know where to begin. They want us to give up. They want us to accept this."

I pulled away from his grasp. My palms were wet with his sweat. Beneath the light, his demeanor shifted as wildly as his eyes. He stood up as if he didn't want me to see his face anymore. He paced from one end of the forgery to the other, while his hands curled and uncurled into fists. One second, his green eyes would focus on the wall, the next they would focus on me. I yearned to see them flash. I could handle his drug-induced state. His sober state was more terrifying. But nothing happened.

"How—" His lip quivered. "Why didn't your dad teach you any of this?"

His question sounded far away, like he wasn't asking it at all. I recognized the frustrated look as one I had myself. When I realized my father's forgery wasn't normal, I had gone through the same feelings. Noah wasn't asking about my life; he was questioning himself. He didn't want to know why I wasn't taught it; he wanted to know why he had been taught it.

I spoke up without thinking, "None of it is your fault, you know. Just because you escaped, and—" Rinley and Liam and your mother didn't. I couldn't say the rest. But I understood. I escaped Albany and my mom didn't. In a way, we were the same. In a way, we could understand each other. In a way, I had just come to understand that myself.

Noah, as if he had heard my unspoken words, froze, his eyes locked on mine. I didn't breathe. He didn't seem to either. As time stretched, my mind raced. Apologize. Something. Anything to break the deafening silence between us. The footsteps upstairs echoed, but it wasn't enough to break the trance straining between us.

"I hesitated," Noah said, empty-eyed. "I hesitated at the station. Rinley was behind me, and I couldn't jump onto the train. If I had jumped, she could've followed me, but I didn't. I panicked. That's when the cops saw us." His eyes darted about, as if he stood in that memory right now. He paled. "Rinley ran. Liam came back for me. He threw me on, and they shot him." Noah's hand landed on his chest, and his fingers spread out as if his hand was the bullet that ripped his brother to pieces. "That bullet was meant for me. It killed my brother, but it should've been me."

I couldn't speak. I was afraid I would cry if I tried, and I felt selfish for feeling that way. It hadn't happened to me. If anything, Noah should've been the one with tears, but he was completely calm—as if he had succumbed to the pain a long time ago. Or hadn't felt it at all. Either way, I wasn't sure how he was supposed to be. Tragedy wasn't that simple. It never was.

"I need to get Rinley out before the war spreads," he said. "I've seen it spread."

He didn't have to clarify that he hadn't seen it spread while using tomo. He had seen it in real-time, in Albany, in Topeka, in any region anywhere. And I couldn't deny it any longer.

There was a war, and it was only a matter of time before I experienced it for myself.