Attachment by Julia (Wattpad username: afterlightt)

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ATTACHMENT

by Julia (Wattpad username: afterlightt)

Mentor: Charlotte Huang, author of FOR THE RECORD, releasing Fall 2015 from Delacorte

 ***

“These violent delights have violent ends.”

— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Before

 It was a blisteringly cold December evening when Violet rushed to the forbidden rooftop. The rain stung like a warning on the tip of her tongue. She was afraid of many things, but the thought that she wouldn’t remember her best friend tomorrow was unbearable.

He stood at the opposite end of the roof by the railing, overlooking the city. This was their last night to break the rules together.

 “We should do something no one has ever done before. To remind us. So we won’t forget each other,” she said as she approached him.

            “But we will forget each other, no matter what we do,” he said. “That’s how they want it.”

            “Give me your hand,” she said.

            She uncapped a pen.

 After

 The first thing she saw when she woke up was a screen.

            “Do not be alarmed,” it read. “This is standard procedure. For your safety, you have been relocated to CITY 2609 to begin YEAR TWELVE at SCHOOL 530910. To prevent dangerous attachments, your mind has been wiped of all names and faces from your past year of school. REPEAT: do not be alarmed . . .”

            She sat up in the hospital-like bed, bewildered, looking at the other students around her. The room was white and plastic.

Suddenly, she understood.

#

She noticed the writing on her wrist that night when she took off her long-sleeved uniform.

The blue ink was smudged.

River?

Why would someone write that word on the back of her hand? If she couldn’t remember how the writing got there, that must have meant that someone she had forgotten wrote it.

            She went to bed that night without trying to wash it off.

            As she waited for sleep to steal her away from her bunk bed that night, she stared at the card in her hands, flipping it over and over in her fingers. The harsh red lines were visible even in the dim light of her dorm room.

            Nine of Hearts. Red. Her new identity in the game.

            After she’d woken up in the white room with the screen, a group of Reformers had taken Violet and the other students to another room, equally as white and blank. They had formed a line of students leading to a deck of cards on a table. From then, it was simple.

            Pick a card. Any card.

            It will hold your name, locked inside like a secret.

It was the one thing they let you keep, to remind you that there was more to lose.

#

Violet first saw him three days after Shuffle. Their assigned chore was washing dishes.

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