Once An Eve Novel

from under his. It looked so strange with the glittering ring on it, like some picture from a book. “It won’t,” I whispered, walking ahead. I closed my eyes, and for a second I could almost feel Caleb beside me, hear his low laugh, smell the sweet sweat on his skin. We were back in the plane, his ear to my heart, clinging to each other in the dark. “I don’t think that can happen more than once.”
    Charles followed me. “I don’t believe that,” he said. He stared at the marble floor. “I can’t.”
    “Why not?” I asked, raising my voice. It sounded so foreign in the wide, empty corridor. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that someone wouldn’t want to be with you?”
    We descended the escalators. Charles stood on the step above me, his hand raking his hair. “You make me sound so awful,” he muttered. “It’s not like that. Ever since I can remember, people have talked about how I’ll marry Clara, as though it were a given. I was sixteen and everyone had my whole life planned out for me.” The soldiers followed behind us. He lowered his voice, making certain they didn’t hear. “And then you came to the Palace. You were different. You haven’t spent the last ten years inside the City, doing the same thing every day, seeing the same people. I’m sorry if I like that about you. I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to have feelings about this whole thing.”
    “Have all the feelings you want,” I said, an edge to my voice. “But that doesn’t mean I can pretend that this is what I always dreamed of—not to you.”
    As we crossed the street toward the Palace, his gaze wandered to the fountains, the statues of the Greek goddesses that stood fifteen feet tall, carved from bone-white marble. All traces of the man I’d met in the conservatory were gone—he seemed so unsure of himself now. He spoke slowly, as if he were taking great care with each word he chose. “This is what I want. You are what I want,” he said finally. “I have to believe that you’ll want it, too—maybe not right now. But someday. Probably sooner than you think.”
    We took the elevator up the tower in silence. Two soldiers joined us, slipping in casually, as though they weren’t watching my every move. I despised Charles then. I could only think about the conversations that must have passed between him and the King, wondering if this was something that had been discussed all along.
    When we reached his floor, Charles leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. I turned away, not caring if the soldiers saw. He stepped back, his face pained. I just pressed the button in the car, over and over again, not stopping until the doors shut behind him, locking him out.

thirty-one
     
    BEATRICE MET ME AT THE ELEVATOR. SHE WALKED ME TO MY suite and helped me from the dress, all the while asking me about the party. It was a relief to be out of those skintight clothes. My face was wiped clean, my reflection finally recognizable without all the makeup caked on it. We sat down beside each other on the bed. I slid off the ring and set it on the nightstand, a faint pink mark on my finger the last reminder of what had happened that night.
    “I never would’ve managed this long without you,” I said, pulling at the collar of my nightgown. “A ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem like enough.”
    “Oh, child,” she said, waving me off with her hand. “I’ve done what I can. I only wish I could help more.”
    “I can’t live like this,” I said. My lungs were tight at the thought of it, day piled on top of day, each one more stifling than the one before. I kept waiting for something to change, for the paper to reveal news of Caleb. But nothing happened. Now there would be plans for the wedding, ceaseless, senseless talk of bouquets and rings and which foods they would bring in from where. Did I want beige linens or white? Roses or calla lilies?
    Beatrice pressed her palms together, her face strained with worry. “You will live like this,” she said, “as we all have. With the memories of life before the plague. With the hope that it will one day be better.”
    “But how?” I asked. “How will it be better?”
    She didn’t answer. I put my face in my hands. I couldn’t reach out to the Trail anymore. No one would trust me. I was under constant surveillance now. Caleb was gone, somewhere beyond the City’s walls, with no promise of coming back. Even if the tunnels were built, how would I get to them? And if I managed to