The Revealed (4 page)

My mind flits back to preparatory school, the day the presidential candidates were announced almost a year and a half ago. I already knew and so did most of my classmates, but the official word from Congress sealed my fate.

I was in the auditorium, sitting on the indoor wooden bleachers that were raised at least ten stacks deep. My classmates surrounded me in that awkward shuffle of cliques that haunted teens even after the war.

Kai Westerfield and his friends sat in one corner, talking and laughing. He was so carefree. He wore his uniform without the required tie and kept a few buttons of his shirt undone. It was just the right amount of practiced dishevelment. The girls in the group had hemmed their skirts well above their knees so they had to sit with both their legs to one side to keep from showing the world what was underneath. As if giving people a sneak peek wasn’t the point.

I wasn’t the only one stealing glances at the group. Kai Westerfield was considered the North American Sector’s most-eligible bachelor, and he wasn’t even of legal age. All the girls in the auditorium were glancing at him, hoping to catch his attention.

He, on the other hand, kept his arm draped around a busty blonde who was splayed across his lap. I don’t even remember her name now. Just his arm candy of the week. She kept nibbling at his ear. He allowed it without giving her so much as a glance. This made her pouty. When she curled her bottom lip and had the nerve to speak to him, he pushed her from his lap. She smacked onto the wooden bleachers and huffed, open-mouthed at Kai, but didn’t have the nerve to call him out.

Kai didn’t even glance in the girl’s direction.

Another girl, this one auburn-haired, reached out an arm and placed it just above Kai’s knee. She stared hungrily at him. He gave her a fleeting look before ignoring her, too.

I glanced at him only for curiosity’s sake. Didn’t he feel the same pressure I always did to uphold his family’s reputation? The auburn-haired girl ran her hand farther up Kai’s leg.

He and I had the power to ruin our parent’s careers if we chose. How did he keep that worry from his expression? I felt like it always weighed mine down—like my eyes would shine brighter if only I didn’t fret so much about the opinions of others.

Jeremy silently waited for me at the auditorium door. My parents had authorized clearance for him to attend all of my classes. He spent every weekday watching over me, standing outside the doors of my classrooms.

There was a reason people kept their distance from me.

My professor played the news for the school and we watched. Well, I tried to watch as lead anchor Riley Fisher made the announcement standing outside the Capitol Building. He kept the suspense for as long as possible before revealing the contenders.

Mark Atwood and Roderick Westerfield would vie against one another in the first presidential election since the war.

No one was surprised. But this was the official announcement. Before, it could be waved off as friendly speculation. Now the election and my father’s involvement were strikingly real.

My eyes immediately returned to Kai, who was receiving high fives and pats on the back from his friends. They were whooping and laughing, causing quite a ruckus. One boy, Kai’s best friend Micah, even held up Kai’s hand and shouted, “Future First Son!”

I sank down on the bleachers, trying not to look at the other students who were staring at me.

Kai could have the title, for all I cared.

One girl in my class, a little blonde named Keira who had always been friendly enough, put a hand on my shoulder. “It won’t be so bad,” she grinned encouragingly. Her father was a neurosurgeon, some kind of scientist at the Pentagon or someplace. She had no idea.

I peeked over my shoulder, and my gaze caught Kai’s. For just a moment we looked at each other. Was he remembering those days in California, too? Our families used to meet at a beach house in Malibu every summer. I was seven, Kai just eight. We were friends, in the sense that we ran around outside together, making sand castles and collecting seashells.

My throat caught as I thought about our family dinners beside the fireplace. My mother would be chopping leaves for a salad, Kai’s mother making strawberry shortcake for dessert. And my father and Roderick Westerfield would be throwing hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill. Kai and I would occupy ourselves at the table. I would set the plates down neatly, and he would follow behind me, rearranging them until I got angry.

It was simple then. Things made sense. Sure, our fathers had different political opinions, but they were friends. They still found enough common ground to appreciate one another.

Then Kai’s mom died during the war. And Roderick Westerfield became a different man. A vengeful man. Harsh and hard. There were rumors that during the war, he had killed men with his bare hands when he and Kai needed food. Not that those rumors were rare. People became desperate when they hadn’t eaten in weeks. But with Roderick Westerfield, it was different somehow. Darker. Not born out of desperation but desire. As if he had to prove to the world that he was top of the food chain, most powerful of them all. It wouldn’t surprise me if the rumors about Westerfield were true. You just knew with a glance at him that he wasn’t a man you wanted to make angry.

Part of me pitied Kai, but he was growing up to be just like his father. It was difficult to feel sorry for someone once they were capable of making their own decisions. I watched the auburn-haired girl’s hand creep even higher until it made me blush to keep watching. It was more difficult by the day to sympathize with him.

By the time Kai and I found our way to prep school, we hadn’t talked to one another for years. We were strangers. He had his jock friends, and I had parents who were grooming me for an election.

He loved being the center of attention. He had a different girl on his arm every week, model types who fawned after him. He was the son of a powerful man, and that attracted a certain desperate type of girl. He played into it though, and played them, going through almost every girl in our school.

I avoided him, not interested in his games or the show he put on for attention. I hid from the spotlight while he reveled in it, squeezing out all he could.

Our mutual gaze in that auditorium ended quickly. But the memories of that beach and our families still made my heart twist. Not with longing, but with sadness for things lost.

As the bell rang, I piled my books under my arms and bolted from the room, slipping past Jeremy and not giving him time to follow. I hid under the bleachers outside and cried.

I thought the spot I’d found was safe, but quickly learned otherwise as voices drew near.

My cries dried in my throat. I sank deeper into the shadows, huddled amongst the dust and spider webs. Feet clanked against the stair treads. Two voices carried from above.

“I mean, it’s pathetic really,” one boy said. It sounded like Micah.

And then Kai spoke, and I knew I’d heard right. “She just thinks she’s too good for all of this. Did you see how she ran from the auditorium?”

There was a snipping sound as they fired a light. Then I smelled the smoke from the cigarettes as it wafted through the crevices in the bleachers. They were smoking between classes, which was not allowed but a lot of the students did it anyway.

“I mean, everyone knows she’s the biggest snob at the school. And in a school full of snobs, that’s saying something. Look at you, your dad’s running for president too and you still have friends.”

“She clearly just can’t handle it. It’s her parents’ fault. You should see them outside of TV. Her mom is like this pathological liar. The woman will say anything if she thinks it’ll help her family in the polls. Her dad’s spent so much time and energy creating his career, he can’t see past that to anything else. Of course Lily’s fucked-up.”

The boys jumped over the railing and onto the dirt. If they looked over their shoulders, they would see me.

The boys put out their cigarettes, grinding their feet into the dirt.

“Whatever, man, I want nothing to do with that girl. She’s weird,” Micah went on, raking a hand through his hair and spitting in the dirt.

Kai agreed. “Weird and a snob. Not that she has a reason to be a snob. All you have to do is look at her face to see that.”

The boys snorted laughter and their voices grew faint, but I stayed hunched in the corner. I sat in the shadows for a long time. I was too humiliated to leave before I was positive everyone else had gone home for the day.

Kai’s comments surprised me, though I knew they shouldn’t. Everyone whispered things like that behind my back. I was the biggest snob, the girl who wanted nothing to do with people she thought were beneath her, which meant everyone
,
according to my peers.

But ugly? I mean, I’d never thought I was some drop-dead gorgeous stunner or anything, but ugly? And he’d said it without any hesitancy, with such conviction that it made it feel like well-known truth.

I know Kai and I didn’t speak. But I thought he of all people would know what I was going through. It would make sense to him, if to no one else.

Clearly, I’d been wrong. Really, stupidly wrong.

I pulled my hair from its ponytail and ran my fingers through the front pieces so they didn’t tuck behind my ears and fell firmly into my face. With my books clutched in front of me, shielding as much of my face as possible, my eyes panned to the path at my feet, I found Jeremy, and went home.

Kai’s words echoed in my head.
Not that she has a reason to be a snob. All you have to do is look at her face to see that.

And as any girl would do, I looked to my mother for affirmation that I didn’t deserve those words. That I was worth more than that, that my exterior appearance didn’t define me.

“Lily, what happened to you?” my mother paraded toward me as I entered her wing of the house. Her fingers danced across her ear as she secured the back of her earring. Then she began running her fingers through my hair and pulled it back into its slick ponytail. “Your face is a mess. Have you been crying?” she sighed. “Maybe we should leave it down then. I can have Meredith come up to give you a hand with the styling.”

More tears stung my eyes. But I strangled them back.

“Don’t purse your lips like that,” she tapped them. “You’ll get premature wrinkles. You need to clean up. We don’t have that much time. You know it’s a big day for your father. He’s talking to Jet and his PR team now to go over the plan for tonight. Did they show the announcement at school?”

I nodded stiffly.

“Good,” and now she added a hint of glee in her eyes. “It’s all going so well. We just have the dinner tonight. You just have to get through the Congressional dinner. Put your dress on and a smile. You don’t have to do anything else. You’re father and I will handle the press. Maybe say hello to Kai. He’ll be joining Roderick this evening. It would look nice for the campaign if you two were friendly.”

I couldn’t speak without letting free the flood of tears.

My mother paused only then to look at my face. She didn’t need to voice the disappointment I saw there. “What am I going to do with you?”

It was then I realized no one was going to comfort me. There weren’t going to be warm embraces and soothing words anywhere in my future. Only hard interiors and forced smiles. So I conformed. Became the statue everyone expected. Faked grins and donned pretty dresses.

After that day, I wore my hair down and my head low. I waited out the days until Kai turned eighteen, which was only a few weeks after I overheard him talking. Then he was pulled from school and kept indoors.

He survived his eighteenth year without being taken and joined the military on his nineteenth birthday. I’m sure it was his father’s idea. It would look great for his father’s campaign to have two military heroes in the family. And Kai was destined to be a military hero, with all his charisma and charm.

My mother pulls the newspaper from her face. She insists on having paper copies hand-delivered each morning, even though everything is available online now.

Her face is placid and she nods, “That will do.” She waves the seamstress away with one hand. My garment is complete.

“I see Kai’s home from the military,” I tip my chin at the front page.

My mother glances down at it like she hadn’t even noticed his picture. “Yes, well, apparently he’s on leave for a while to help his father with the campaign. Not sure what help that boy will be able to provide, though. All trouble if you ask me.”

My mother stands and unzips my dress. She holds it carefully while I step out.

“Watch the hem,” she warns. I do and step down onto the plush carpet, pulling my sundress back over my head.

My mother hangs the ball gown for me. The maids will deliver it to my closet later. Wouldn’t want to risk the dress by placing it in my hands for longer than necessary. I may ruin it, and this dress cost enough to fund the gala itself.

“Am I done?” I ask, trying to keep my irritation from my words.

“For now,” she says, and I run upstairs before she can change her mind.