Catastrophic

Chapter Seven

        I hear a chorus of shouts and clapping behind me, and I snap my head in the direction of the noise. I must look like a madwoman, because all the smiles congratulating me falter, and their clapping wanes. There are tears still sprinting down my face, and there’s a crazed look in my eyes, I can tell. At least my hair isn’t one, gigantic mess that would magnify my distress by tenfold.

    I glance at the crowd and catch the sight of Ryan at the front. They’re crowded around the entrance of the tent, and a few hold the flaps back. How long have they been here? How much did they see?

    I can tell by the relief etched on their faces that they knew about the test, they knew about what I had to go through. I understand they couldn’t tell me, because that would jeopardize the purpose, but at least one of them made that test, made me almost have a heart-attack, and I won’t just accept their apology.

I stand my ground as Ryan strides over to me with a worried expression on his face. He carefully wipes my tears off my face, leaving a chill across my cheeks. “You passed. Why are you upset?” he murmurs thoughtfully. A crease forms between his eyebrows, and I resist the urge to lean into him and kiss that worried expression away.

“Can I not say it in front of all who watch my every move?” I whisper, and he nods as he waves them all off with a promise of celebration tomorrow as a “rain date” for this evening.  

“What’s going on inside your precious little mind, darling?” he asks sincerely but charmingly.

It’s almost enough to calm my unease. “Why put me through that? Wait, scratch that. What I meant was, why choose that sort of test to give me?”

“It was the only way ―”

“The only way to what?” My anger is snowballing, I can tell, but I have to say this, to get it off my chest. “To push me away? To scare me out of my mind? I can tell you that already today, I have felt more lost than I have ever been, what with traveling to a different ‘section’ and getting no answers to where the heck I am. I never asked for this, and if I had known where the heck that throne would lead me, I would never have gone back to that bathroom. I have no clue what’s going on, and I’m tired of being left in the dark. And then, to top it off, you give me this test to deem my worthiness and apparently everything will be alright. Well, news flash. I almost broke inside because of that. I was so close to falling off a cliff inside me that would eat up my humanity, because I failed to help that person I apparently couldn’t help to begin with. I was so close, so very clo―”

“But you didn’t. You didn’t fall off that cliff, and that’s why you are what we’re looking for. That’s why we had to trigger your stress levels to see how you would react. We had to see if you have goodness in your heart before you can be involved in what we do. Because if you are truly a bad person, well, you could never help citizens the way our group does,” he rests his hands on my shoulders for the second time tonight and I am restraining my adoration so much that my shoulders begin to shake. Ryan leans his forehead down and presses it against mine, so we’re looking into each other’s eyes. “I always knew you had it in you. And I’m sorry. You’ll get answers soon though, I promise. You’ll get your light in a moment, and when you do, I’ll always be beside you,” he whispers as I tilt my face up towards him just as he’s bringing his down to meet me. We meet halfway and our lips touch, feather soft at first, and a warm tingle shivers up my spine. We allow an inch of space to catch our breath before we collide again, the kiss being much more passionate now. My fingers reach up into his hair and tangle in it just as I feel his arms slide around my waist, bringing us as close together as we could be. His mouth moves against mine and I can’t process any other thought or any other feeling except for the warmness that spreads through me and the ache to have him closer, even though there is no space between us.