Читать книгу Thrive - Mary Borsellino - Страница 16

One afternoon, a whole glut of customers order souvlaki at once. Olivia helps where she can in the kitchen. Even with the extra pair of hands, it's a very hectic hour or so for all of them.

By the end of it she is exhausted and exhilarated, but Sam's a complete wiped out wreck. He sits on the kitchen floor, leaning against the side of the fridge and closing his eyes, his face relaxing as he's soothed by the hum of the motor.

It's almost closing time, and Olivia thinks the other people who work behind the counter can manage the rest of the shift without their help.

'C'mon, let me help you upstairs,' she says, reaching to help him up. Sam shies away from her touch, climbing to his feet on his own and shuffling towards the narrow flight of stairs.

Olivia's worried by how strung-out he is. It's as if dealing with that many people has used up every reserve of energy he had. Sam kicks off his shoes and lies on top of his thin coverlet, his hand making that same nervous-fidgeting flapping movement that he did the first time she came around.

'Are you okay?'

He glances down to see what she's looking at, and gives a weird, nasty-sounding laugh at the sight of his own hands and arms.

'My mother always used to tell me "quiet hands, Sam",' he says, making his voice stern and sharp on the last three words. 'I tried, as much as any five-year-old can. She'd tape my hands and wrists to the arms of chairs, trying to teach me how to keep still, but it…' He closes his eyes, as if the memory is painful enough that he has to brace against its hurt. 'I didn't learn the lesson. Within my first week of starting preschool, the teachers noticed my hands. That tipped them off to look for the rest — and here we are.'

Olivia can't breathe. She can't move, can't speak. Her mouth opens anyway. 'You can't mean—'

'It's a form letter. The escort officer brought it when he came to pick me up. One page, folded into thirds. It looks so ordinary.'

There's a shell-shocked wonderment in Sam's words, as if he can't believe the details, even after all this time. 'Dear madam, your son has evidenced a failure to thrive. He is being relocated in order to allow for a more appropriate resource allocation to take place. As compensation, you are entitled to government-supported prenatal and neonatal care for your next pregnancy. Please call the following numbers for further information on this incentive scheme. We wish you better luck in the future.'

And there it is. Failure to—

'You're a thrive,' Olivia whispers.

'It's not catching, don't worry.'

'Fuck you.' She kicks against the side of his bed. 'As if I'd be like that about it.'

'You'd be surprised. People are…' Sam pauses, closing his eyes as he searches for the right word. 'Unpredictable.'

'I should have realised. God, I'm an idiot. I didn't even think about why a kid no older than me was working instead of going to school, or how you had grey market connections, or where your family was or anything. I'm sorry.'

'What're you sorry about? It's good that you didn't think of it. Isn't that supposed to be the ultimate goal for a thrive, to pass undetected? We can even earn integration certificates if we pass tests. I haven't tried to take the tests. I thought it was better to keep going as I was. Not to rock the boat.'

'Fuck.' Olivia doesn't know what else to say.

'Hmm?' Sam is confused by the venom in her reaction. His confusion makes her sadder, more upset.

'It's really fucked up, Sam. You're a kid. I couldn't manage if I was shoved out on my own and had to get a job and everything.'

He gives her a crooked smile. 'You're an entirely different circumstance. You've already proved you're worth the investment just by being normal, so it's all right for them to put in the effort of raising you. I wouldn't be a good return prospect on the nurture.'

Olivia didn't think it was a literal thing, when people said being shocked felt like their head was spinning. But it really is just like vertigo. Her feet are bloodless and her head is dizzy. How can this be happening in the world she knows, to someone she cares about?

'I didn't…' She has to swallow twice before she can talk. 'I didn't know that thrives happened in this part of the city.' At school and on TV, she'd always heard that the defects and disorders that thrives had were caused by stuff like radiation leaks or chemicals in the soil, leftover remnants from the Wars. That stuff wasn't supposed to be around in the city anymore. Not in the part Olivia lives in, which has trains and plumbing and schools and everything.

Thrives happened in a blurry, distant land called somewhere else. They were something for politicians to make up scare campaigns about and for her parents to discuss over dinner while Olivia pushed her food around her plate and ignored them. Thrives weren't… they weren't Sam.

'I'm just lucky that what's wrong with me doesn't stop me from being able to work,' Sam remarks, his voice not quite achieving the nonchalant tone he's obviously going for.

'There's nothing wrong with you,' Olivia snaps in reply before she knows she's going to speak. Anger is like a bullet from a gun, tearing through her so fast that she's ripped apart before she knows the shot's gone off.

Even after Hannah, after the kidnapping, Olivia's world was so little, so safe. She never... She never thought…

She doesn't know how to think. The rage inside her, the sheer injustice of Sam lying here alone and miserable, of what that means about every other thrive she's ever heard about, that they weren't monsters or less than human, they were just kids, just others like Sam, just people.

She wants to cry. At least crying would be a reaction. It's like she's going to explode with the force of what she feels.

Sam's gaze has drifted over to one of the towering stacks of books along the edges of his room, to a decrepit hardcover marked Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World.

'It's comparatively gentle. In Sparta, babies that didn't measure up were left on hillsides, or thrown off cliffs. We had a guaranteed place in the shelters to sleep until we were ten. The older ones are kind to the younger ones — children that can eat without too much help almost never starve. A lot of cultures have been far harsher.'

Olivia wants to say that this is the coldest of cold comforts she's ever heard of, but she thinks Sam knows that already. Instead, she tries to steady her breathing, to push down the anger boiling through her, and asks, 'Do you still not want to be touched, or can I get in?'

'No, it's okay. I'm okay now.' He shifts to make what room he can on the narrow mattress.

Olivia climbs in next to him and curls herself against his side, hugging her arm across his chest. She wishes she could travel through time, be with him through every moment of hunger or cold or loneliness. But she can't. He had to go through all of it without her, without anyone. All she can do is be here now.

'There's nothing wrong with you,' she says again, her voice quieter now but no less fierce. Sam strokes her hair, as if she's the one that deserves to be comforted.