The Elite (Selection)

placing them lower on the scale and reward the loyal by placing them higher.
    I wondered if my great-grandparents simply had nothing to offer or if they had resisted this. I hoped it was the latter.
    What should my last name have been? Did Dad know?
    My whole life I’d been led to believe that Gregory Illéa was a hero, the person who saved our country when we were on the edge of oblivion. Clearly, he was nothing more than a power-hungry monster. What kind of man manipulated people so willingly? What kind of man hawked his daughter for his own convenience?
    I looked at the older entries I’d read in a new light. He never said he wanted to be a great family man; he just wanted to look like one. He would play by Wallis’s rules for now . He was using his son’s peers to gain support. He was playing a game from the very beginning.
    I felt nauseated. I stood and paced the floor, trying to wrap my head around it all.
    How had an entire history been forgotten? How was it that no one ever spoke of the old countries? Where was all this information? Why didn’t anyone know?
    I opened my eyes and looked to the sky. It seemed impossible. Surely, someone would have disapproved, would have told their children the truth. But then again, maybe they had. I’d often wondered why Dad never let me talk about the timeworn history book he had hidden in his room, why the history I did know about Illéa was never in print. Maybe it was because, if it was there in writing that Illéa was a hero, people would have rioted. But if it was always a point of speculation, where one person insisted it was a certain way and another denied it, how would anyone ever hold on to the truth?
    I wondered if Maxon knew.
    Suddenly a memory came to me. Not so long ago, Maxon and I had our first kiss. It was so unexpected that I had pulled away, leaving him embarrassed. Then when I realized that I wanted Maxon to kiss me, I suggested that we simply erase that memory and plant a new one.
    America, he’d said, I don’t think you can change history . To which I replied, Sure we can. Besides, who’d ever know about it but you and me?
    I’d meant it as a joke. Surely, if he and I end up together, we’d remember what really happened no matter how silly it was. We’d never actually replace it with a more perfect-sounding story simply for the sake of show.
    But the whole Selection was a show. If Maxon and I were ever asked about our first kiss, would we tell anyone the truth? Or would we keep that little detail a secret between the two of us? When we died, no one would know, and that fraction of a moment that was so important to who we were would be gone.
    Could it be that simple? Tell one story to one generation and repeat it until it was accepted as fact? How often had I asked someone older than Mom or Dad what they knew or what their parents had seen? They were old. What did they know? It was so arrogant of me to discount them completely. I felt so stupid.
    But the important issue wasn’t how this all made me feel. The important issue was what I was going to do with it.
    I’d lived my whole life stuck in a hole in our society; and because I loved music, I didn’t complain. But I had wanted to be with Aspen, and because he was a Six, it was harder than it had to be. If Gregory Illéa hadn’t coldly designed the laws of our country, sitting comfortably at his desk all those years ago, then Aspen and I wouldn’t have fought and I never would have cared about Maxon. Maxon wouldn’t even be a prince. Marlee’s hands would still be intact, and she and Carter wouldn’t be living in a room barely big enough for their bed. Gerad, my sweet baby brother, could study all the science he wanted instead of pushing himself into the arts for which he had no passion.
    By obtaining a comfy life in a beautiful house, Gregory Illéa had robbed most of the country of its ability to ever attempt to have the very same thing.
    Maxon said if I wanted to know who he was, all I had to do was ask. I’d been afraid to face the possibility of him being this person, but I had to know. If I was meant to make a decision about being a part of the Selection or going home, I needed to know exactly what he was made of.
    Donning my slippers and robe, I left my room, passing the nameless guard on my way.
    “You all right, miss?” he asked.
    “Yes. I’ll be back soon.”
    He looked like he wanted to say more, but I left too quickly for him to speak. I headed up the stairs to the