Becca glanced over her shoulder at the car as her finger hovered over Heather’s doorbell. She could still just leave. Go back to the apartment. Help her mom make dinner. Heather probably didn’t want to talk to her anyway.
She rang the doorbell.
She didn’t even have time to hope nobody would be home before the door opened. Heather’s eyes widened before she smoothed her face into a neutral expression. “Becca.”
“Can I come in?” Becca asked, feeling absurdly shy in front of the person who had been her closest friend for almost as long as she could remember. “I want to talk to you.”
Heather studied her warily.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” When had Heather started being afraid of her? “I just want to talk. Really.”
Another second of hesitation. “Okay.” She held the door open for Becca.
Becca followed Heather up the narrow staircase and into her bedroom. The boxes were gone, all except for one, which Heather had turned on its side to stack her clothes in. The room didn’t look like it belonged to the Heather she knew—her textbooks were piled by her bed instead of strewn across the floor, the walls were bare except for a single Internal poster hanging above her bed where a giant collage of her friends had hung in her old room, and there wasn’t a dirty sock in sight. But it didn’t look temporary anymore either.
In her old room, Heather would have flopped down on the rumpled bed and asked Becca what was wrong. Now the bed was neatly made, and Heather stood stiffly in the center of the room.
Becca couldn’t figure out what to do with her arms. She crossed them, clasped her hands in front of her, let them fall to her sides like dead fish. “I just wanted to say that I understand.”
Heather frowned. “Understand what?”
Becca stuck her hands in her pockets. That didn’t feel right either. “I understand why you reported me. And I can’t hate you for it, not after…”
“Oh. Thanks.” Heather stretched her lips into a smile.
They stood there for a moment, looking at each other. Becca pulled her hands back out of her pockets.
“Was that everything?” asked Heather.
“I guess. Yeah.”
Another few seconds of silence.
“I should probably get home,” said Becca. “Mom’s waiting for me. She came home early, and I promised we’d have dinner together.”
She waited for a response. When Heather didn’t say anything, she turned around and walked to the door.
“Wait,” Heather said as Becca stepped out into the hallway.
Becca stopped.
“I really am sorry. For turning you in like that. You could have died in there.” Heather drew in a breath. “I know it’s not okay. But thank you for being willing to forgive me anyway.”
Becca turned back around. “I really do understand.”
“It’s not going to happen again.” Heather took a step closer. “I know you, Becca. I’ve known you for a long time. I can see how you’ve changed. What happened to my parents changed us both. It made me understand what was important in life… but it turned you into a dissident.”
Becca’s vision darkened. Everything faded out except Heather. Her heart pounded. She had heard the word in school all day, but this was different. Heather had spent so long refusing to accept how Becca had changed. She wouldn’t say it now unless she meant it.
“I’m not a dissident.”
“Don’t lie to me. I know you too well for that.” Heather reached for her pin, then stopped. “I know I should turn you in before it’s too late. But I can’t. After I told them about you, I didn’t sleep until I saw you in school that day. I couldn’t think about anything but what they must have been doing to you. I can’t do that again.”
“I’m not—” Becca started again.
Heather held up a hand. “I told you—don’t lie to me.”
Heather knew. Becca had convinced her mom, but somehow, Heather knew.
“I meant what I said,” Heather told her. “I won’t turn you in.”
“Thank you.” What else could she say? No matter how many times she said she wasn’t a dissident, Heather wouldn’t believe her.
The silence stretched longer and longer.
“I guess that’s it,” said Heather.
“I guess so.” Becca wished she had something else to say. Some way to revive their friendship. But they had both changed too much. There was nothing there anymore, no friendship to go back to.
“I’ll miss you.” Heather’s smile earlier had been forced, but her look of regret was real.
“I’ll miss you too,” said Becca as she left the room. She didn’t have to say that the old Heather was the one she would miss. She was sure Heather understood.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Becca speared a piece of chicken with her fork and transferred it to her plate. She breathed in and smiled. “This smells great.”
“I hope it tastes as good as it smells,” said her mom from across the table. “I’m still not sure about this recipe.”
Becca spooned rice onto her plate from the serving bowl. She nudged the edge of the bowl by accident, and it shifted slightly, almost knocking her plate to the floor. She stabilized it just in time. “You don’t have to try so hard, you know.”
Her mom studied her chicken. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. The special dinners, the movie nights, all the calls from work you’ve been ignoring…” Becca didn’t know whether her mom was doing it to convince her not to go live with her dad, or because she was worried that Becca would turn into a dissident again the second she let her out of her sight. Either way, the end result was the same—Becca and her mom hadn’t spent this much time together since Becca was in elementary school.
Her mom still hadn’t seen through her lies. Maybe she and her mom really were that distant from each other now… or maybe her mom was just desperate to see what she wanted to see.
Just like Becca had kept herself from seeing the truth about her mom for so long.
Her mom changed the subject. “How did school go today?”
“The same as ever.” Becca shrugged. “Maybe a little better. I got through the entire morning death-threat- free, and some freshman I don’t even know came up to me in the hall and told me that no matter what anyone else thought, he knew I was a loyal citizen.” She pushed her food around on her plate. “Of course, then he asked if I thought you could get him a job in Processing after he graduates.”
Over the past six weeks—ever since Jake’s arrest, ever since her mom had started spending every spare minute with her—they’d been talking again. Not like they used to; it would never be like it used to be. But Becca could tell her mom things again. She could look at her and almost see the person she used to know.
She hadn’t forgotten what her mom was. She didn’t try to push it out of her mind anymore; that didn’t work. She saw it, and she hated it… but she saw her mom, too.
There were only two things her mom never brought up: Becca’s time as a dissident, and the choice Becca still had to make.
“You know I feel about Heather,” said her mom, “but—as much as it pains me to say it—you may want to consider following in her footsteps. You said things got a lot easier for her after she joined the Monitors.” She began cutting her chicken into neat squares. “Besides, it would be a good step for you if you change your mind about
