Page 56 of Sparktopia
But eventually, the peace we’ve created for ourselves here in my rooms comes to an abrupt end when someone pounds on my door.
Finn gets out of bed, carefully, like he thinks I’m asleep and doesn’t want to wake me, and I open one eye and watch him pull his pants back on. He answers the door, barely opening it a crack.
There is a whispered conversation that I can’t really follow, then he reaches out with one arm and a garment bag is draped over it.
It’s my dress for tonight.
I expect him to let the attendants in—I am always dressed by attendants. But instead, he closes the door and turns back to me. “I told them I would help you get ready.”
At any other time, these words might make me blush. Would certainly make my heart beat faster with the thought of Finn helping me into a gown. Standing behind me, pulling my corset tight. Adjusting me. Making me perfect.
But right now, it just makes me sad. It makes me think of all the years we had, and now we don’t. How there will be no children. No home of our own. No plans, nothing.
This is it.
He will dress me. We will go to the ceremony. We will feast, and dance, and walk to the tower—probably holding hands.
And then the clocktower will strike midnight and I will walk through those doors, never to see him again.
“How?” I ask, my voice low and husky.
He drapes the zippered-cotton garment bag over the back of an overstuffed chair and turns to me with a face of confusion. “What?”
I struggle, looking for the right words. “I… just… don’t understand. Help me understand. How? How could you ever send me in there?”
His frustration comes out as an arrogant huff. “That’s not fair.”
“I’msorry? What’s not fair? The fact that you get to live another day and I don’t? Or is the prospect of guilt what’s tripping you up?”
“I thought we went over this, Clara. I can’tnotsend you into that tower. You’ll go whether I send you or not. It’s not me! It’s not up to me! And if I resist?—”
“I get it.” I sneer these words out. “I do. I get it. I’m just one woman. Nobody in the grand scheme of things. But…” I huff now too. “How, Finn? How will you live with yourself? Because if the roles were reversed, I could not. And I would not spend your last day pretending everything is fine. I would not”—I nod my head to the dress—“pretend like this offer to dress me is anything other than ritualistic preparation. I would not lie to myself. But you…” I shrug up one shoulder and shake my head. “You are not only lying to yourself, you’re doing it so casually and with such indifference it’s blowing my mind. It’s making me question everything about you. Aboutus. Because the man I thought I knew, the one I grew up with, my best friend for as long as I can remember—he would at leasttryand fight for me.”
“Even if he knew he would lose? Even if he knew this display of pointless valor would kill people? Is that the man you want? The one who weighs the soul of one against the souls of a hundred, yet still chooses the one? Is thatromantic, Clara?” These words come out as seething rage.
Which is appropriate, I suppose. Given that I practically called him a spineless coward. But it’s out of character. The sex was… interesting. And, not gonna lie, especially to myself, it was good. Very good. But that was out of character too.
Not out of character that it was good. I’ve always enjoyed sex with Finn. And it’s not even that he did dirty things to me. Or asked for dirty things in return. I’ve always had a suspicion that Finn was holding back when we were intimate. That he had desires he never told me about.
How could he not? We parted when we were eighteen. We led completely different lives and when we did meet up, we didn’t usually have time to explore each other. All our private encounters were trysts scheduled in between appointments and the needs being met during those trysts were more emotional than physical.
We were trying to convince ourselves that we still had a relationship.
We were propping up the idea that we could spend all our new-adult years being two totally different people, on two totally different life tracks, and not have it spoil the dream.
Because I see now that’s all it was. That’s all Finn ever was.
Just a dream.
But it’s just interesting that all of his out-of-character behavior pops up after Aldo died and Finn became Extraction Master. It’s maybe not fair to assume that the new title is already contaminating him, but everyone knows power corrupts.
Of course, I might be reading too much into this. It could just be sadness. He’s mourning Aldo and soon me. But it’s still out of character.
Since I don’t answer his last question, Finn decides that he has won the argument and turns back to the garment bag containing my dress. I am in bed, naked, but I throw the covers off me, walk into the massive, luxurious bathroom, and then close and lock the door.
I turn on the hot water, letting steam swirl up around the ceiling, and I stare at myself in the fogging mirror.
I am pretty, but not any prettier than the other Maidens. Perhaps the Maidens, as a whole, are prettier than most women in the city. But… it’s basically a beauty contest, so it makes sense that we’re all little copies of each other. Slightly different faces, slightly different hairstyles, slightly different heights.
