Amy Hadley 1. "Number Nine"

Chapter 6

I feel so, so stupid...

Now he resurfaces in my life, making me the same effect every time, and now I keep thinking about a stranger, a man with whom I spent only a few days, out of time, when I was still thinking I was going to die anyway. And he behaves as if I mattered so much to him that he takes the risk of infiltrating here, when we don't even really know each other.

His sweetness, his voice, his warmth, I missed all of this and I still miss it the next morning when I open my eyes. This is the reason why I feel stupid. I don't know him very much, in the end. I spend the rest of the night trying to collect as many memories as I can from the days when we were only two children in a bookstore. My mother used to take me there often, because she met other friends there, with whom she shared her troubles, when my father's absence and the worry of knowing him at the front of the war became unbearable. I remember that he intrigued me, and that his face, too dark for a child, intimidated me. I had Damon and Hanna at the time, but I felt like he had no one.

In those moments when I was away from home, the presence of this little boy was reassuring. I remember every time my mom took me there, I hoped he would be there too, even if we never really talked together.

I have so much in my mind the next day that my best friend starts questioning me about ten minutes after we wake up. Since she can be persuasive and insistent, I decide to tell her everything, and it feels better than I would have thought. I tell her about my meeting with James, our trip in the forest, the medallion, and his visit last night. I make her swear not to tell anyone.

Hanna is very affected and touched, she listens to me carefully with stars in her eyes, I don't understand why. We go downstairs as usual for coffee and the three pills breakfast, then I head quickly to my dissection room, hoping to be able to train before the lectures begin. I am progressing too slowly, which annoys me deeply. I'm definitely better in theory than in practice.

Also, a little before noon, I am feeling very sick. I run out of the room to go throw up in one of the wall trashcan. That is another concept unique to Global. Wall trashcans are like metal bins, hung on the walls. As soon as they fill, it's immediately swallowed by the wall, to go I don't know where, and it always reappears in a different place.

- Are you pregnant, Nine?

- Christopher, John, just shut up.

103 and 132 stare at me with big eyes. I grin, proud of myself, even if I probably look pitiful, leaning over my trashcan. I know their names, and they seems shocked enough by it to leave me alone.

My nausea and feeling of discomfort subsided as soon as I returned the bile and coffee I had in my stomach, and, relieved, I return to my classroom.

- You missed an amazing conference about autogenous bone graft tonight.

Surprised, I jump on my little stool, almost overturn my tray of sterile instruments again. I did not start the dissection despite the fact that it was my primary intention, and the reason why I missed the last conference of the day.

- Are you trying to do a purse-string suture?

Leo looks down on my prolene 3/0, and smiles at me. I didn't hear him coming in. I take off my surgical mask and move my books on my side to let him sit next to me.

- Why are you still training?

I sigh. As there's only the operating light above him, he looks even paler than usual:

- I want to improve. I am far from being very good with my hands. I have a lot of progress to make.

I want to be better than the others, so I can deal with it when I will have my next low.