Lara's pastel pink room is empty by the time I get back to her block. I sit by her window ledge which I had -for the past fifteen years of my life- snuck in through, my lungs still burning from exhaustion.

I stare at the cat-themed wall clock hanging over her bed in her shoe-closet sized room as I steady my breath. I'm too late. She's probably at the ceremonial hall with her parents right now, waiting to get paired. 

But if she can't help me, who can?

I'd broken up with my boyfriend Logan the night before over text, after our last night together. I texted him after my dad confirmed our departure, in the wee hours of the morning, wishing him good luck with his future mate and asking him not to contact me, as I would be unavailable.

It was the most logical thing to do for a relationship that was both illegal under the government's strict social laws and also impossible, considering the trajectory of our life choices.

He was joining the army after getting married. I was headed to the mountains to procure an illegal stomach surgery, from which I would probably never rejoin civilization as I would be considered a fugitive for breaking the mandatory law of being paired.

If our lives were to ever cross, It wouldn't be in the most memorable manner.

But it was a choice I couldn't refuse. I had for the longest time, dreamt of living a normal life, even if it meant being on the run. Now I can't even get the chance to make that choice. It had been snatched from me before I could even savour it.

My chest burns and I cough, feeling a ball of sputum rise up my throat. I beeline towards her bathroom and kneel by the toilet seat hurling a black viscous liquid that burns like acid and smells like death.

It's a side-effect of the terminal illness that I've suffered from birth. I reach out for my sling bag only to realise that I'd left it in the car with my phone after the soldiers found us.

The sound of a close-range silencer fills the air around me and I crouch into a foetal position as I'm swept back into that harrowing moment.

All I see is my mum's dead eyes looking back at me as her blood paints the interior of our old caravan. I hear my dad yelling at me to make a run for it as he tries to disarm the soldier and then everything blurs out from my field of vision.

When I open my eyes, I'm back at my neighbourhood again, the only difference is, its empty. Everyone's gone to witness the pairing ceremony. I thought I'd come just in time to catch my best friend and tell her everything.

Tell her that I think I've just watched my mom get murdered right before my eyes. Tell her, that I left my dad fighting with the soldiers who kept yelling 'high treason!' Tell her that I might be in a whole lot of trouble and that I don't want to die.

But it's too late.

If I had known that a few minutes would change the trajectory of my life, I would've never agreed to go with my parents to the mountains for that stupid undercover surgery to fix my illness.

I would've put on the wedding dress that my mum made as a decoy to cover up any suspicions from our nosy neighbours and went to this stupid ceremony even if it meant being termed 'unpairable' like my mom said they would if they found out about my condition.

I would've chosen anything better than this.

I lift myself up from the bathroom floor and drag myself back into her room as the pain in my stomach and chest worsens. I don't have my medicine with me.

I can't go more than four hours without my next dose, but I am numb and past the point of caring as I stand in my best friends neat room, staring at her prized possessions of the countless medals she's won from all the countless beauty pageants she's participated in since middle school.

I grab a picture of her from her nightstand, staring at the only picture she'd taken with her older sisters; Fleur, Adalia, Rosa, Elodie, Camilla and Olive.

They were all paired and currently live lives much different from this owing to the slightly wealthier families they'd married into. I remember Lara talking fondly about them. She'd tell me how she too wanted what they'd gotten once they'd turned sixteen.

A husband in a well-paying, respectable profession, a big house on the west side with a view of the mountains, far away from the overpopulated city and at least two children.

A boy and a girl.

It was a generic dream. Something that all the girls dreamt about ticking off on their list. It was a dream I would never get to live, even if momentarily in my daydreams.

...or was it?

Staring at her dresser, an idea comes to mind as I slowly rise from Lara's bed, setting the picture aside. I slide open the dresser doors, staring at her collection of pageant dresses and smile softly, wiping the tears off my cheeks.

I take out my favourite dress. A soft pastel pink a-line dress that her mother had designed for the Miss Winter Formal pageant, a winter ago. It doesn't quite fit me in all the right places, as I am not as endowed as her but it looks like a believable pairing dress.

I slip it on and head back into the bathroom to fix my hair and makeup. It takes nearly half an hour to get done and I almost look as put together as any other bride-to-be.

After that, I go rummaging through the house, and find a bunch of painkillers in Lara's parent's room and shake them down with a glass of milk before leaving the house through the door, for the first time in years. 

I go down the five flights of stairs and roam the ghost-like streets for a few minutes before the idea begins to feel a bit absurd to me. What am thinking?

That I could simply pretend as if nothing had happened? That my parents hadn't been killed or that I wasn't currently a wanted person? That I could simply sneak my way back into society and act like I was this normal girl who didn't throw up black liquid every couple hours when not on my medication?

It was pointless. And to be honest, even if I told Lara, there was little that she could do within her power to help. If anything, I would be endangering her life by ruining all the plans that she had worked so hard to achieve.

I settle into a park bench, resting my face into my hands as tears fall into my palms. The pain in my stomach grows and just as I am about to debate heading back to Lara's room, a car driving by stops and the windows roll down.

"Hey there, hun? You late for the bus?" A lady in the passenger seat asks.

I look up, wiping a stray tear and open my mouth to speak but choke when I see her husband on the wheel and her two daughters in the back, staring at me.

That was me, an hour and a half ago, I think to myself.

"We're late too. Alyssa here took forever to chose a proper hairstyle," she teases, much to the annoyance of the one called Alyssa who flips her off when she's not looking. I stare at her.

She's a pretty brunette, a little on the heavier side, but very pretty, with brown eyes and thick, curly hair. Her sister is a complete mirror image, but blonde.

They peer at me curiously, staring at the obviously ill-fitting dress I have on before Alyssa's mom speaks.

"Look, you can ride with us. There won't be another bus for like forty-five minutes and I believe they're fining late arrivals. Okay?"

I nod, partially because I want to see my best friend off for the last time and partially because I don't want to be alone when the soldiers find me and decide to arrest me for treason.

But most importantly because I might actually have the chance to escape, if that's still a choice for me.

"Where are your parents by the way?" she asks when I get inside.

"Gone," I mutter softly.

"Oh really, they must be waiting anxiously for you, by now," she says.

"In heaven," I think and sigh, my eyes filling with tears.

"We'll meet up very soon," she says as I look out the window, at the neighbourhood I'd called my home for perhaps the last time.

 Slowly, as we approach the ceremonial hall where the pairing will take place, it begins to dawn on me that I don't have a plan anymore.

I feel like I'm in free fall, waiting for the inevitable painful crash that'll follow if I don't find a way to escape or disappear from this harsh reality.

But for a brief moment, even though I know that I might die if things don't go in my favor, I feel alive for the first time in years.

A/N
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