Chapter 2

A Chapter by Mari

May 18th, 3624

Zeke

That did not go as expected. I was trying to keep her from losing her temper, but it was too late. Whenever she gets mad there’s no use arguing with her. She was wrong; she didn’t change that aspect of herself. But I should still apologize. I was a little out of line. I just thought that this, being in the same sector, would maybe be a way for us to be friends again. I turn and head for the door, to see where she went, when I feel someone grab my arm and yank me back.

“Do you really want to do that?” Scott says with a smirk.

“Do what?” I add defensively. “I was just going to tour the rest of the wing like we’re supposed to.” Okay maybe I’m more angry than defensive at this point. But still, he started it not me. But because of him Anya’s mad at me.

“You’re going to apologize aren’t you? You feel bad about what you said to her, don’t you?” he mocks. “Being friends with her is probably the worst thing you could do to yourself here. My brother told me that when he was training, the boy who was friends with the caretaker was the worst recruit he’d ever seen. She distracted him. Do you want that to happen to you?”

“An apology won’t kill me. It wouldn’t kill you either. So until you decide to actually have feelings for someone other than yourself, I think I’ll make my own decisions.” I storm out the door as angrily as Anya had. He really is annoying. I count nine other doors in the hallway, all identical. Finding her may be harder than I thought. Well, at least the doors all have labels; otherwise they don’t look any different from the outside.

One room catches my eye: the library. She’s in there. I know it. Or…well I would have known it eight years ago, now it’s just a solid guess. I creak open the door and see her sitting down on a couch in the middle of the room. She’s curled up in a ball, hugging her knees into her chest. She evidently didn’t hear me come it, so I slowly sit next to her. She still doesn’t look up. I place my hand gently on her back.

“What?” She suddenly snaps to attention.

I jerk my hand back. “I just…I wanted to apologize…for before. I didn’t mean to offend you or anything. I just wanted to make sure nothing happened. I…I know you don’t need my help or anything but I hate fighting, and I didn’t want one to happen already. I just…I don’t know…sorry this apology sucks,” She looks up at me with tears welling up in her eyes, the ones that are both familiar and strange to me at the same time. She curls back up into a ball and says nothing. “Please, Anya, talk to me. I know we haven’t exactly seen each other in like forever but I’m making an effort here,”

“Oh, I’m sorry I’m not being cheery after you left me the day after my dad died. I needed you, a friend, but you left. I had no one. My mom was a wreck and she still blames me for that and I’m not even sure what happened. I didn’t see you once after that. You didn’t even try to come back once things settled down. What were your parents forbidding you from talking to me? Were they watching over you 24/7 to make sure you were a complete jerk to me?”

“I don’t know what to say…”

“Then just leave. Everything you try to say just makes everything worse. It’d be better for everyone if you just left me alone and didn’t speak to me.”

“Anya I-”

“Go. Leave. I want to be alone.”

“Anya, please listen. I never meant to hurt you by leaving. I…my family was the main reason why, but even then I could have found you at school or anything to reconnect with you but I was afraid that you’d still be mad. I just…I really want to make it up to you. You were one of my closest friends back when I was little. I’d just really like to start over,” She peaks her head up a little bit, red streaks from the tears streaming down her face. “Hi, I’m Zeke, and you are?” I extend my hand for a handshake, praying that she’ll accept it. She stares at it blankly for a minute before she shakes it back.

“Anya,” she croaks. “I…didn’t mean to blame you for all that. I’m just a little touchy at the whole thing still, not remembering what happened and all. But look, just because I’m not going to yell at you anymore, doesn’t make us best friends. We’re starting over. You have to get to know me again before I’ll ever trust you,” she adds quickly, switching to a standing position.

“I’ll take it. It’s better than nothing I guess. So, Anya, what do you want to do now?”

“I’d still like to be alone. Go join your new friends back in the bedroom. I’m sure they’d be happy to see you again,” I take the hint and leave, opening the door and almost hitting Eli in the face.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just trying to find you and Anya. I heard you guys and thought that I should have helped…but I never came inside,” he stammers nervously. “The rest of the guys went into the storage closet over there. I think they were hoping to find weapons or something, but I didn’t feel like going in there. I was kind of afraid to.”

“It’s okay, why don’t we go check out the track or something until lunch? We have about twenty minutes,” I add, reading the sign off the door behind him. At least Eli’s giving me a chance. Although, he doesn’t really remember his dad’s death the way Anya did. He was only four.

“Yeah that sounds good. Let’s go.”

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Eli and I were able to walk around the indoor track for a while and even raced a few times before lunch. But at one o’clock sharp we all gather in the kitchen. Anya comes in looking almost tired, but the slight redness under her eyes leads me to believe that she was crying some more. I want to go talk to her but she won’t even make eye contact with me. I think that maybe she’s still grieving her dad, and because she doesn’t know what happened, she still blames herself for his death. I guess since I was a part of her life then, and not now, she associates me with his death, and is still pissed at me.

I sit down next to Eli, and she sits down on the opposite side of table. Then Derek and Scott take the seats on each side of her. That can’t be a good sign. Adrian walks over to our table and leans on the back of Scott’s chair. “Lunch is ready. There are plates and stuff over there. Help yourself. Make sure you clean up when you’re done.” He pushes off the back of the chair and heads for the door, clearly not joining us for this sector lunch. Everyone starts to stand up in unison and congregates over to the table. There is pasta and chicken set out for us to take, buffet-style, and glasses of water at the end. We all somehow form a straight line and get our food in silence.

As we’re walking back towards the table, Scott, in an attempt to pull his chair out to sit down, is balancing his water glass in the crook of his arm with his plate resting on his palm. As Derek walks to his seat he lightly bumps into him, throwing him off and causing his glass of water to drop to the floor and shatter. Both he and Anya receive the splatter of water and broken glass and jump back in surprise. Scott’s seat is now drenched in water, as well as the bottom of his pants and shoes.

“Oh, I guess you’re going to have to clean that up now,” Ryann adds jokingly, taking a seat on his dry chair. Anya sets down her plate on her chair, cautiously walking over the broken glass.

Scott looks at Ryann, confused. “Wait, isn’t that Anya’s job? I mean she is the caretaker,” he asks as if he is genuinely curious. “Adrian said she was here to sort of take care of us and clean up after us right? So, I guess, wouldn’t it make sense for her to pick it up?”

“She’s here for when we need it, like for during training, not for when we’re being lazy,” I add, rolling my eyes. Even if he really feels like that’s her job, it doesn’t give him the right to make her cater to his every whim just because he did something wrong.

“What difference does it make? We’re here, in the training facility, and she’s officially our caretaker now. Is cleaning up a spilled glass really that big of a deal? I mean yes I am physically capable of doing it, but if it’s her job, why should I?” He pulls his chair out farther to sit down and sees the water puddle in the center. He widens his eyes and pushed his chair back in, as if to say ‘I’m not sitting here anymore’.

“But it isn’t her job just to pick up after us. We can do things for ourselves too.”

“Zeke, I don’t care. I’ll pick up the glass and wipe up the spill,” Anya interrupts. She pushes her plate off to the side and stands up. “My seat is dry, Scott. Just sit here for now and eat. I’m going to go clean this up because it is my job.” She walks around the other side of the table and opens a few cabinets before finding a stack of towels and pulling them all down. Scott doesn’t hesitate to take her seat and start eating again, disregarding the fact that Anya hasn’t even touched her food, and now has to waste time slaving over him before she can eat.

I look down at her, on her hands and knees wiping up the large puddle of water that seems to have spread, and I wish I could just kneel down and help her. But I know it wouldn’t help anything. I really wish she would just let go of what happened eight years ago. I’m trying to be her friend again, but she’s holding this grudge and won’t let me in. She soaks two of the towels with water before moving along to pick up the broken glass. As she drops the first large piece into her hand, I see her flinch as the yellow towel covering her palm starts to slowly turn red. She drops the piece to the ground and removes the towel, examining a rather large gash seeping from the center of her hand.

“I’ll…be right back,” she stammers, running out of the door to I’m assuming the bathroom to clean up the cut. Scott turns and looks at the dry shards of glass still on the floor, now covered with a slightly bloody towel. He shrugs and starts to eat again. I don’t know how he can be so nonchalant about this whole thing. Anya just cut her entire hand open picking up the glass that he dropped in the first place.

“Hey Eli, why don’t you go help your sister clean up her hand? I mean she seemed to want to help you yesterday, why don’t you go join her now?” Scott sneers between bites. “Or maybe you could clean up the glass for her. You could protect her like a true brother,” he mocks, initiating laughter among Derek and Ryann.

Eli slumps back in his chair embarrassed. “She doesn’t need my help,” he mumbles, only loud enough for me to hear over the loud roar of laughter. “On second thought maybe I will go help her, just to get out of here.”

“No, Eli. Stay. They want you to leave. That’s the reaction they want. Stand your ground and fight back!” I say, grabbing his arm to stop him from bolting out the door.

“I don’t want to. I just want the teasing to stop. It hasn’t even been a day and they’re already picking on me. I knew I made a mistake coming here.” Eli twists out of my grip and heads towards the sink. He drops his plate into it forcefully and storms out the door.

Scott snorts. “Like brother like sister I guess. Neither of them is ready for this if you ask me,” he adds, glaring at me, waiting for a reaction.

“Did you forget that Anya gave you her seat so she could clean up your mess? She cut her hand helping you. She did nothing wrong. And Eli was literally just sitting here. You forget that he’s only twelve. He hasn’t even finished school. Your teasing is really uncalled for and just shows how immature you are,” I retort, not caring if this is exactly what he wanted me to do.

“Maybe a twelve year old shouldn’t be training to be in the war. I don’t care who his parents are. He’s not good enough. He’s not mature enough.”

“Yeah well neither are you.” I leave my plate on the table and leave. Upon opening the door out, I almost hit Anya in the face. That makes it the second time today I’ve almost killed someone with a door. I look down at her hand, taped with a piece of toilet paper around the center. “Do not go back in there, whatever you do,” I say, wanting to make Scott clean up his own mess, in more ways than one. I let the door close behind me and take one step closer to her.

She gives me an odd look. “Well can you explain to me why half of our sector stormed out of the lunch within the same like twenty minutes?”

“Let’s just say that Scott didn’t want to stop at just tormenting you. I wonder what he’s going to do now that he’s only left with his friends in there,” I add, not wanting to explain how I had stood up for her and Eli. That’s not exactly the type of thing ‘acquaintances’ do. “Look, I know you haven’t eaten, but I strongly suggest waiting until they leave to actually eat. I doubt they’re going to clean up the food anyways.” As if on cue, her stomach growls and she looks at me with sad, puppy dog eyes. “Here, I’ll make you a deal. If you wait to eat, then I’ll help you clean up everything, even the broken glass. I just really don’t want them to bother anyone else.”

Her stomach growls again. “Okay fine I guess I can wait a bit longer. But you owe me big time.” She turns back around and walks towards the library. I start to follow her, unsure of what else to do at this point since my options are limited. She reaches the door and swings it open gracefully. I take one step closer to entering when she slams the door in my face, leaving me stranded in the hallway. Guess she still needs some time to warm up to me.

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