“What were you and Oz doing sneaking around the storage areas, anyway?” Sarah’s tan freckles stood out against her blanched cheeks.
It was impossible to tell if she was angry, hurt, or confused. Probably some mixture of all three, which pretty much described my feelings at the moment, too. Analeigh’s gaze burned the side of my face, saying she wanted me to come clean, to tell Sarah everything. It would hurt her even more to wonder whether or not she was betrothed to … whatever Oz was these days. That confused me as much as anything. I couldn’t pin him down.
In the end, her happiness meant too much for me to break her heart. If Oz was going to do that, he could damn well do it without my help. My pause must have been too long, because Sarah’s eyes filled with tears a moment later.
“If there’s something going on between the two of you, please tell me. I don’t want to be the dumb girl who’s the last one to know her own True doesn’t want to be with her.”
“Sarah, no. No.” If she weren’t so distraught I would have laughed at the ridiculous suggestion that someone who had the chance to actually be with their true love wouldn’t take it. “I wanted to go and watch holo-files of Caesarion, but I was too embarrassed to tell you guys, so I snuck out during the party. When I heard the Elders coming down the hall and acting all secretive, I just … well, you know how I am. I was curious and wanted to snoop.”
“But Oz left the party right when you did. How do you explain that?”
I couldn’t, but Oz could take care of his part of this mess on his own. “You’ll have to ask him. I didn’t see him until I snuck out of the Archive room to follow the Elders. He asked what I was doing, and then tried to talk me out of it—of course.” That coaxed the slightest smile out of her. “And when I ignored him, he followed me. Probably to try to keep me out of trouble, except we both got caught eavesdropping and now we have to go to a sanction in the morning.”
Sarah didn’t say anything for a long time. I closed my eyes and tried to stop my heart from pounding. Oz’s secret travels and clandestine assignments might be off-limits but I couldn’t lie to her about tonight. Not totally. It would hurt her worse to hear it from other people, and thinking that I tried to cover it up would all but solidify, in her mind, that there was something to cover up.
“He kissed me.”
Sarah’s eyes flew to my face, and Analeigh sucked in a sharp breath. Before either of them could start yelling, I pushed on. “It was only so the Elders wouldn’t think we were snooping, and it didn’t mean anything, I swear.”
Tears rolled down Sarah’s cheeks. Each one burned my heart like acid, pain I deserved for being in the position to hurt one of my best friends, even if it had been unintentional. “Sarah, I’m sorry. I swear to you, nothing is going on between Oz and me. Wrong place, wrong time. That’s all.”
“So, the sanction is about being caught making out in a restricted area?” she choked out.
“Yes. His dad was one of the Elders who caught us, though, so I’m sure the penalty isn’t going to be terrible. A few weeks of mopping duty, maybe.”
Moppers, those with lower aptitudes that cleaned our Academy, normally changed the sheets, dusted the nooks and crannies, things like that. Taking over their duties for a week or two was a standard sanction for minor infractions. I’d done it a few times. It was kind of peaceful, actually, and a good way to let my mind wander over upcoming reflections when it wasn’t terribly disgusting. Cleaning the bathrooms in the boys’ dormitories nearly cured me of committing infractions ever again, though.
“That’s really all there is to it? You were snooping, he tried to get you to stop, and then you kissed him to cover up the real reason you were in the restricted storage area?”
I swallowed my protest that he had kissed me. Oz had saved my ass, so it wasn’t fair to throw him in front of the transport ship now. “That’s really all. I swear, Sarah.”
My insides, from my stomach to my heart to my throat, clenched painfully at the lie. Not because the kiss had knocked loose hidden feelings for Oz, other than more confusion. Because even though I knew Sarah was asking whether he and I were involved in some kind of illicit affair, it felt like a lie to omit the twisted battle of secrets in which Oz and I were mired.
They weren’t our secrets, but that wouldn’t matter when she learned that I had known he’d possibly been betraying us all and had kept it from her. She could hate me forever.
I would hate me forever, if I were in Sarah’s shoes.
Now, she took a deep, shuddering breath, climbed off my bed, and wandered into her own room. A series of squeaks and rustles said she’d burrowed under her covers, finished dealing with me for tonight. Analeigh and I looked at each other, and I read disappointment and sorrow in her reproachful gaze. She knew nothing was going on between Oz and me, but we both knew if I hadn’t snuck out tonight none of this would have happened.
“Should I have told her everything about Oz?”
The throat tats came in handy once in a while, and Sarah’s bedroom left her too far away to overhear our silent whispers, even if she was faking sleep.
Analeigh shrugged, then shook her head. “No. We can’t ruin her trust in him without proof.”
“The Elders definitely know he’s traveling alone, and they were talking about giving him some kind of assignment.”
“We don’t know that what he’s doing is bad. Maybe it’s good,” she replied, her tone doubtful.
I wanted so badly to believe that. That everything and everyone I’d believed in my entire life had humanity’s best interest at heart, that Oz cared about Sarah and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize our lives or our future in Genesis.