Brave New Love (24 page)

From there it just became a question of what constituted
harm.

•  •  •

Emily had a bad day on Thursday. She sat out in P.E. for the third time in a month, which meant she was sent to the nurse’s office. And that meant she lingered by the
doorway of my advanced calculus class long enough for me to notice and ask for a hall pass. We’ve done the old switcheroo before, of course, swapping shirts in the bathroom. Unless
you’re a twin, you probably don’t realize how little people actually notice about you—even your closest friends. Most of the school thought I was the utilitarian, practical twin
with her hair up and she was the pretty, girlish twin with her hair down. Emily might have been one of the most popular girls in school, but the truth was, fooling people took little more than a
ponytail.

I noticed in the bathroom that she was flushed and had dark circles under her eyes, but that had been the norm for the past month. There’d been plenty of tossing and turning from her side
of our bedroom every night, though I wasn’t sure if the cause was physical or psychological. After all, I hadn’t been sleeping great, either.

But I wasn’t the problem. You had to watch out for girls like Emily. Girls who went out and got themselves pregnant . . . well, there was a reason the government put them in WOMB.

“Sakasaka, Em?” I asked. By mutual agreement, we’d kept the twin-talk to a minimum since hitting high school, but sometimes no other words would do.

She curled her index finger over her temple. “Sakasaka. A couple of cramps, but they’re the fake kind.” Scott, our Foundlings contact, had explained to us that we’d know
the fake ones from the real ones if they stopped when she changed position. “I’m just tired.”

“Well, don’t fall asleep in class.” I said. “Like last time.” I’d made her serve my detention. Fair’s fair.

“I’d be more scared there’s a pop quiz.” Math is not Emily’s strong suit.

At the nurse’s office, I played it off as a headache, though, naturally, the nurse couldn’t see anything wrong with me. The WOMB monitor was there, and she gave me a once-over and
even flipped through Emily’s chart on her tablet.

“You’ve been putting on weight, Emily,” she said. Our WOMB monitor’s name was Stricter. How’s that for irony? She looked the part, too, with steely hair scraped
back into a bun so tight it was like a bargain-basement facelift. She was bony more than skinny, and her mouth twisted into a permanent, puckered frown. I always looked her in the eyes. Lack of eye
contact was a red flag—it’s how I nailed Emily to start with.

I shrugged as I straightened my shirt over my jelly belly. “I probably should have gone out for track this year.”

“Is everything all right with you?” she asked. “You know, my position here at the school is one of counsel for young women.”

“Young
pregnant
women,” I clarified.

It’s impossible to smile and pucker at the same time. Monitor Stricter failed miserably at her attempt. “Any young woman,” she said. “It’s important that you girls
understand I’m only here to help.”

“I absolutely do.”
Understand what you are here to do.
They think we don’t keep track of the girls who vanish. It’s usually something as simple as a P-sweep that
catches them. Or if not that, a rumor, or a friend rats them out, or the boyfriend turns them in when they go to him for help. Or maybe the girls turn themselves in, the way we’re taught
to.

Not my Emily. She didn’t need WOMB to take care of her. She had me. “You don’t need to worry about me,” I said. “My sister and I are abstinent.”

Was that too much? Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned myself. If they did a simultaneous test, we’d both be toast.

“Emily,” the nurse said. “Seventh period’s almost up.”

I hopped down from the table, conscious that Stricter’s eyes were still focused on my belly. I pretended to hike up my pants so she could see the roll of flab I’d so carefully
cultivated hanging over the edge of my jeans.
Fat, not baby, Stricter.
She made a note in her tablet and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Like so many things, it was premature.

•  •  •

You’d be surprised how quickly you can win any argument about safety with five simple words: Is it worth the risk? Is it worth the risk of killing your baby to have a ham
sandwich, even though the doctors tell you that lunchmeat might give you food poisoning? Is it worth the risk of having a mentally retarded baby to drink a beer?

I used to take this tack with Emily. Was it worth the risk of getting pregnant in order to have sex with slimy-ass Robbie? Was it worth the risk of having your heart broken by him? The answer
seemed obvious to me, but not to her. She never thinks, just follows her heart.

The answers are clear-cut to everyone when it comes to babies, though, whether they’re thinking with their hearts or their heads. No one is going to get very far saying babies should have
less
protection. And, after a while, it wasn’t enough for WOMB to just protect mothers and babies from nutjobs with knives and nurse uniforms. First there was the WOMB consumer
advocacy board. They went after child products, and pregnancy wear, and formula, and vaccines.

It wasn’t long before they started going after the moms. There were just too many things out there that had the potential to hurt mothers or babies. It wasn’t worth the risk. Thanks
to the tireless efforts of WOMB lobbyists, it soon became illegal for a pregnant woman to drink alcohol, to smoke or take painkillers, or drink coffee, or order sushi or soft cheese or buy house
paint—even if she swore it wasn’t for her. Was it worth the risk, all those bartenders and pharmacists and sushi-peddlers of the world? They didn’t install P-sweeps at the door of
every coffee shop, but the army of WOMB agents was there to remind people of the law.

And what happened if you broke the law? At first, there were warnings and fines put in place. For repeat offenders, the government agreed with WOMB—it wasn’t worth the risk.

•  •  •

The biggest risk we’d taken so far was hooking up with Foundlings, though it’s not like we had much of a choice. I made a chart for Emily, delineating each of her
options.

The name of the game, I told her, was risk management. Option 1 would end the need for concealment, but the stakes were the highest, and the penalty could very well be death.
Option 2, the “safe harbor” strategy, could also backfire, especially if something went wrong with Emily’s delivery. Option 3, The Foundlings, was the best choice because, if
rumors could be believed, they provided medical care for their girls. But contacting them was dangerous. You never knew if you were dealing with a WOMB agent in disguise.

Scott says the Foundlings have the same fear every time they meet with a new girl—that she’s a plant. Emily didn’t like Scott. She didn’t trust him.

I thought it was a bit late for her to start becoming suspicious of men.

•  •  •

Today was not one of our bi-weekly appointments with Scott, but I saw his beat up old Prius in the school parking lot as we left the grounds. Since I’d met Emily at our
locker after the nurse’s station, we hadn’t bothered switching back, but it didn’t make a difference. Scott always knows who’s who with us. I figured it’s because he
spent so much time dealing with pregnant women. Though if that was the case, wouldn’t Stricter have sniffed Emily out months ago?

Scott was standing by the car door, all lanky and nerdy-looking with his faded jeans and his plaid shirt and his square glasses. He could have been a student teacher, or someone’s big
brother, visiting home from college. He could have been someone’s boyfriend.

“Get in,” he said as we approached.

“What’s going on?” I asked warily, looking back at the school. Even from across the parking lot, I could see Stricter in her crimson uniform standing in front of the doors,
surveying the crowd of dispersing students. And then, as if from nowhere, there were two more women in red. And then five.

“
Now.
”

“Did someone turn us in?” I asked as Scott opened the back door and hustled Emily inside. We’d been so careful. We’d followed all the steps. Not a soul knew of
Emily’s condition, except Robbie, and she swore up, down, and backward that he’d never tell anyone, that he was too fearful of the paternity fine. Even so, I had my doubts about how
well he’d hold up under interrogation.

I hurried around to the passenger side, my mind racing. Was it me? Had I tipped off Stricter? Had Emily had a spill in the toilet that set off the P-sweeps? Had we somehow tripped over one of
our steps?

Three doors closed and the child safety locks automatically engaged (mandatory on all models built after 2015, thanks to WOMB). He drove us away in silence. I looked in the rearview. The
monitors were wandering through the crowd. They were looking for someone. They were looking for Emily.

Scott didn’t speak to us until he’d passed the first checkpoint on the highway. “You guys didn’t slip up,” he grumbled, his eyes on the road. “We
did.”

•  •  •

We always knew that it would only take a single break in the chain for things to fall apart. Emily forgetting her peanut butter jar. Me wearing a shirt that didn’t fit her
when we switched. A bout of morning sickness. A rat inside the Foundlings.

Likewise, things could have gone differently with WOMB, back in the twenty-teens. Maybe if there hadn’t been that fertility scare in 2016. Maybe if they hadn’t overturned Roe vs.
Wade or outlawed sexual education in school. Maybe if the Opposition hadn’t lost that election to the Party. So many variables that led up to the Juvenile Protection Act.

There were so many things we couldn’t control, which made it all the more important that we held fast to what we could. I kept that in mind—I controlled my emotions, I controlled my
sexual urges. Emily didn’t—or couldn’t. And now I needed to be the one to control the consequences.

Scott guessed we had about forty-five minutes until our face hit the casts. Then he, too, would be a fugitive, thanks to Amber laws. All of a sudden, there was a whole series of extra steps I
had to add to the plan. I had to plot a route that avoided the checkpoints. I had to find a place to sleep at night. I had to explain to my sister that this wasn’t going to be over in another
month like we’d hoped. That like it or not, we’d been caught.

“Where are you taking the other girls?” Emily asked him after we got off the highway. It was too dangerous to stay on government roads, what with the checkpoints. Twins were far too
conspicuous. “Is there a safe house?”

Scott said nothing. I checked out Emily’s reflection in the rearview and curled my finger over my temple in reassurance. She was looking at me, scared, but not nearly as scared as she
should have been. After all, I was there, wasn’t I? The girl with the plan. The girl with the answers. And as usual, she hadn’t done the math.

Scott had no plan. There wasn’t any safe house. There were no other girls. He was on his own, and so were we.

•  •  •

WOMB eventually decided that the biggest danger of all to unborn babies was a mother’s irresponsibility. And who is the most irresponsible mother of all? The drug addict?
Sure, but everyone’s on board with that one. Sock ’em into WOMB, dry ’em out. The woman in failing health who gets pregnant anyway? Even
she
thinks she needs
round-the-clock care. But what about the pregnant teenager? So irresponsible she got pregnant by accident. So irresponsible the government hasn’t even classified her as an adult yet. So
irresponsible she can’t vote, or hold office, or join the Party, or drive. Way too irresponsible to be tasked with growing a human life. She needs to be monitored, cared for. She certainly
shouldn’t be allowed to choose who gets to keep the baby.

And her family isn’t up for the job, either. After all, they weren’t responsible enough to keep her from getting pregnant. My mother failed. I failed. But there was no way in hell I
would let Emily down now.

•  •  •

One of the reasons I liked Scott so much was that he could keep his head, even when his whole world was crashing down around him. Like how he took time out of his busy schedule
of being on the run to make sure that he stocked his car with tents and sleeping bags and food supplies so we could hide out in the woods. We’d turned off all our tablets, for fear
they’d remote-activate the embedded locators.

It was well past dark by the time we had our campsite set up. Emily was no help. When she wasn’t hysterically crying, she was near comatose. This was to be expected, what with her hormones
and all—another reason WOMB says you can’t trust pregnant teens to make the right choices for their babies. Once the tents were up, I put her in ours, curled up with her and rubbed her
back until the hiccups stopped.

“What are we going to do?” she sobbed.

“Shh,” I said and stroked her hair. “Sakasaka. It’ll be okay.” But it wouldn’t. Right now, right this minute, Emily was being classified as a criminal. Fetal
endangerment and violation of the Juvenile Protection Act. I snuggled closer and put my hand on Emily’s belly. I could feel it kicking. It didn’t seem like it was in danger, here, in
the cozy, safe confines of our tent.

“What about Mom? They’re probably taking her in for questioning right now.”

“Yes.” I said. “That’s why we made sure that she had nothing to hide or lie about. In case this happened.” Of course, there was no guarantee that the government
would believe her. Poor Mom. “Don’t worry about her. Just try to relax. The stress isn’t good for the baby.”