Glitch

around
    201

    Heather Anastasiu
    the cafeteria and saw Adrien sitting near the wall. The sight
    of him calmed the tears that were threatening to rise up. At
    least I’d get answers to night.
    Max nudged my foot under the table. He’d been doing it
    throughout lunch, but this time I fi nally looked at him.
    “Study at your unit to night?” he asked, his voice soft.
    I gave a quick nod and then rose to put my tray away.
    I could tell Max was straining to say something the whole
    ride to my housing unit. He tried to hug me right when we
    got to my room, but I held him back with one extended
    hand.
    “Zoe, I feel . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t have
    the words for how I feel— wrong, bad, as if I shouldn’t have
    said what I did to you. I want to go backward and not say it,
    but I can’t.”
    “Shh,” I said. “My brother is right next door.”
    “He’s on the treadmill, he won’t hear.” He took the hand
    I’d been barring him with and cupped it in his. “This is all
    new for me, too. I need you.” His look was sad, sincere. “I
    want to be with you, even without the passions. You know
    that, don’t you?”
    “Maybe,” I said, feeling all of the sudden like crying again.
    “I don’t know what you mean when you say you want to
    be with me. You are with me. I’m with you. You are the
    person who is”— I looked at the wall, casting around for the
    right word—“more signifi cant to me than anyone. The words
    aren’t right, maybe. But I feel like family with you. It hurts so
    much sometimes that my real family doesn’t seem connected
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    G L I TC H
    to me at all. It’s like we’re just bodies that happen to occupy
    the same housing unit, with nothing else connecting us.”
    I took Max’s hands. “It’s just wrong. Family should mean
    some kind of bond. It should signify that even though no
    one else in the world cares about you, you’re special to
    someone. And that’s what I have with you. You’re my only
    true family.”
    “Family, like a marital unit?” His hands tightened on
    mine, his face tense, but hopeful.
    “I don’t know, Max.” I felt helpless. “I’m not even sure
    what you mean by that. I think you want it to mean some-
    thing diff erent. Isn’t feeling like family enough? Like sib-
    lings used to be, back in the Old World, what I wish I could
    have with my own brother.”
    “Brother?” Max’s voice was hot with disgust. He dropped
    my hands. “I don’t want to be your brother!”
    My face must have showed how his words hurt me.
    He groaned and his shoulders sagged. “I’m doing it again.
    Saying bad things. It’s just that I want to be more than your
    brother.” He crossed the small space between us. He cupped
    my face gently and leaned in, putting his lips ever so softly
    against mine.
    For the fi rst time, I really let go and let him kiss me, trying
    to understand the tingling sensation that was slowly waking
    up inside me. I raised my hand, about to reach out to his face,
    when one of the ceiling tiles shifted and a tall form dropped
    down into the room.
    Max recovered from the surprise quicker than I did and
    launched himself at the fi gure just as I said, “No, wait!”
    203

    Heather Anastasiu
    Max tackled Adrien, easily taking the thin boy down. He
    put his knee in Adrien’s sternum to keep him down and
    punched him hard in the face. I jumped forward and grabbed
    Max’s arm just as he revved up for another swing.
    “Stop, Max, it’s Adrien!” I shouted in a hoarse whisper.
    “He told me he had a way to get in unnoticed.”
    Max’s face was taut with a look I didn’t recognize. It
    looked like anger but at the same time, it seemed like more.
    It scared me.
    “Get off of him,” I hissed, yanking at his arm. Max fi nally
    moved off . Adrien lay still for another moment, hand to his
    nose, before fi nally sitting up. When he moved his hand, I
    saw there was blood.
    I gasped. “I’ll go get some tissue. Stay out of sight,” I said
    to Adrien, suddenly worried that all the noise we’d made
    had been noticed by my brother. I opened the door and
    looked out cautiously. The rhythm of pounding feet on the
    treadmill didn’t change and I let out a sigh of relief. Good,
    Markan hadn’t heard.
    I got some bathroom tissue and came back to fi nd Max
    and Adrien standing at opposite sides of the tiny space, each
    eyeing the other coldly. This wasn’t going well at all.
    “I feel so bad,” I said, handing the tissue to