There were only three things in life I could never forgive myself for.

Number one, I wasn’t as pretty as the other girls.

Number two, I only had three friends.

Number three, I was always so hard on myself.

Thinking of my faults always led me to thinking about death, and I hated death. So much.

My grandma said that when you died your life flashed before your eyes. That terrified me. I would know when I was truly about to die, when I saw all of my memories. The good ones, the bad ones, and the ones I would never forget.

My grandma was wise, and I believed every word she told me. There wasn’t a reason for me not to, she would never lie to me. We had a trusting relationship that went both ways. She was the one person I could tell everything to.

I heard a noise from the hall, and I opened my eyes. The room was empty besides two other beds, which belonged to my mom and my grandma. We lived together in the Bedroom Hall.

That I knew of there were only women in my family. We weren’t supposed to discuss men, and of course I had never met a man before. Most likely I never would.

Both of my family members were at work. They had the morning shift in the kitchen, and when I turned eighteen in around twenty one months, I too would work in the kitchen. That was the job most women took. We didn’t have many options to pick from, at least not as many as the men had.

The men on the other side of the glass worked on everything else; growing the food, getting the meat, building the furniture, and so on. It was their job to take care of us, even though we never met one another.

I always wondered how they grew the food. No one in Apathy had ever left the walls that secluded us from the outside. No one wanted to leave. Everyone thought we were perfectly fine alone, hiding in Apathy. I wasn’t.

A part of me always wanted more to my life than just some books, family, friends, walls, and glass. I needed something more, I needed a purpose, and I always searched for more, but there wasn’t much to find, not in Apathy.

That’s why the outside was wondrous. The outside held all the mysteries and secrets of the world, and I wanted to know them all.

The worst part of Apathy was the glass.

The glass was only in the cafeteria, the library, and the laundry room. It kept the males and the females apart, splitting the rooms in half. Throughout the rest of Apathy was a wall that split through what I guessed was the center of Apathy, however I wasn’t sure there was much more to Apathy than what I’d seen.

It was meant to hold us. Protect us. Cage us, like animals.

Everyone had their own version of why the glass was set into place. Our leader, Nicki Romans, separated us for the better. The males only ever saw her in the cafeteria, but they heard her voice on the intercom as did everyone else.

Nicki’s reasoning was, that when men and women came together it created a poisonous gas, so she put the glass in between to save us from ourselves.

I lost my concentration, watching the door to my room fling open violently. I jumped right before it hit the wall.

Nicki stood in the doorway of my room. “Breakfast is being served,” She told me. “Why don’t you walk with me?”

It was a question, a rhetorical one, which I didn’t have a say in. Whatever she wanted happened, it was how things worked.

Quickly, I got myself out of bed and strode to the door. She backed into the hallway, so I could join her.

I closed my door; then we walked down the hallway. The Bedroom Hall was my favorite hall, it housed all of us.

There were one hundred and twenty females, living within fifty rooms. Most of us were related to one another, and our numbers decreased by the month.

My whole life, I was told that my mom and grandma were my only family left. I knew there was someone else out there who had our same blood. There had to be.

The thought of family always led me to think of our numbers, our decreasing numbers, which concerned me of our future. We were a dying breed and that needed to be fixed. Every year on New Year’s Eve, twenty three women were selected. They were fertilized and then had a baby implanted in them.

At least ten of the babies survived every year but most of them were boys. We needed girls to continue our race. It was only a matter of time before none of us would be left.

We took a right and entered the Suicide Hall, there were ten rooms. Only one girl could enter each room a day. The doors stood wide open, and once you entered they slid and locked shut.

The hall was a cruel and evil invention, and I couldn’t begin to imagine the vile mind of the person who had created it.

I looked at Nicki, and her eyes caught mine, so I turned my head forwards and continued walking. She and I weren’t so compatible; I mean, I had never really talked to her before, but she was just so mean.

We took a left and entered the cafeteria. Both of us stood in line, and she let me in front of her. That was the nicest thing I had ever seen from her.

“You don’t like the Suicide Hall do you?” She asked me, breaking the loud silence.

I looked back at her. She had short light brown hair, and she was average height. Her bright blue eyes stood out from the rest of her features.

“No,” I told her. “I don’t like that hall.” It was my least favorite, which wasn’t a hard decision, there were only two halls.

Nicki let out a small laugh; then she turned her emotions back off. She tried not to feel.

She said she had gotten rid of our enemies. Now the only enemies left were our own emotions.

I couldn’t see how that was possible, we only had two; happy and sad. There was no need for anything more or anything less.

Also I didn’t know what she had meant about our other enemies, or how she had gotten rid of them. No one had ever caused conflict within Apathy. Maybe she meant someone on the outside. Either way it shouldn’t have mattered to me, but I couldn’t keep it out of my head.

I looked to my left. The glass was right beside me and on the other side were men and boys lined up, waiting to get their food.

My gaze averted back to the line in front of me. We weren’t supposed to acknowledge the males, it was considered wrong.

I was so close to them, yet so far away.

The line moved forward, and I followed. Nicki stopped talking at me, and I ignored the rest of the world. Except for what was on the other side of the glass.

Men and boys sat at tables, and I watched as they talked and laughed. They seemed a lot like us. Actually, they seemed just like us, but different at the same time.

The men served themselves since females couldn’t journey over to feed them; I had always wondered what it would be like to serve myself. The men and boys always seemed to have a lot of food, even though there was more of them than us.

I put my hand on the glass and looked back at line. There were only a few people in front of me, soon I would have my food.

The glass felt cold on my hand. I looked back at the other side, still just men and boys in line.

My eyes focused in on the line in front of me. Only two people left.

I looked back at the other side, just a line of men and boys.

Back at the line in front of me. One person left.

I took one last glance at the other side. Just the line; then I turned back to my line, and I saw the hand.

The hand that touched the other side of the glass right beside mine.

I was now at the front of the line. My head turned to the left, a boy stared back at me, and he smiled.

Quickly I turned my head back to the front and grabbed the tray on the counter in front of me.

“Thank you,” I said to the lady, after she placed the piece of chicken on my tray.

“I care for you,” She replied.

I slid down the counter.

My mom stood on the other side. “Thank you,” I told her, smiling politely.

“I care for you,” She said as she smiled back. She slopped green beans onto my plate; then I slid down the counter again.

My grandmother was the last server.

I knew she would hand me a roll, we had this meal at least once a day, sometimes twice.

“Thank you,” I said as she sat a roll on my tray.

“I care for you,” She told me. I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back.

She most likely didn’t even know who I was. It was a sad thing that happened to old people, their memories started to fade.

I never understood how every old person died on their ninetieth birthday, but I didn’t want to know. Some things were best left unknown.

I sat at a table with my friends, Lizzy, Courtney, and Sadie. They talked of the one thing we weren’t supposed to discuss.

Boys.         

“I saw this one boy yesterday here, in the cafeteria,” Courtney said. “And I was like oh, my gosh!” She kept her voice down, so no one would hear her.

“Yeah,” Lizzy said, “And I saw this one boy and I felt super happy.”

They were almost finished with their food. I had gotten mine later than usual.

“We better go,” Sadie said as she stood up. Courtney and Lizzy followed her action. “Sorry Carrie, but we’re going to the library for a while. You should join us after you’re finished.”

I nodded to them.

“I care for you,” Each of them said, before they left me alone to finish my food.

I care for you, it sounded weird, and it didn’t feel right when I said it or heard it.

My eyes found their way back to the glass and the other side. There wasn’t a line on either side anymore, everyone had gotten their food.

I searched for the boy who had put his hand on the glass, but I didn’t see him.

Before I knew it, I had finished my food and walked to the counter with my tray in hand prepared to get rid of it. I dumped my food in the trash, before I sat the tray on the counter; then I left the cafeteria.

I took a right and entered Suicide Hall.

My strides were quick as I hurried past the doors. I took a left and then walked down the Bedroom Hall, until I reached the last door before the laundry room at the end, and I took a right. The glass was in the center of the library, a few boys sat in chairs on the other side.

I saw Lizzy, Courtney, and Sadie. They sat in a group of four chairs in a circle, which is where we sat every day we went to the library. I took my seat and glanced at all of them.

They all were consumed by their books.

I loved to read, but I had a hard time finding new books I hadn’t already read. There was a special book I took from the library one time. I never returned it, it was in the box. Soon I needed to check on the box to make sure no one else had found it.

Every once in a while my bookmark changed places by a few pages. I thought that maybe someone else went to the box, but I found out I wasn’t as good as I thought I was at keeping track of which page I was on. The book sucked me in, and I couldn’t get out. Sometimes I put my bookmark in the wrong place, that was all. It was impossible for someone to have found the box, no one even knew where to begin searching for it.

I could probably recite half the book without even looking at it, it was the best of the best, and it was all mine.

My friends read, while I looked around the room. I pretended to stare off at a wall, but I was really watching the boys on the other side.

The boys always seemed interesting. They had a taste for adventure and played in the library, while all the girls read.

I watched as men entered the library. One of them caught my eye, and he stared me down; then he shook his head.

Immediately, I turned my head away from the direction of the glass. We weren’t supposed to acknowledge the males. I knew that, yet I was always tempted to look.

I looked around the library, on our side and watched the lines of books that covered the shelves with knowledge. I had always loved the library, the quiet and serenity it had helped me relax.

Then I looked back at my friends, the three of them were overwhelmed with their reading material, and I was just an expendable waste of space, which wasn’t needed at the moment. After I glanced at all of my friends, I looked at the other side to see the man had left, so once again I watched the boys on the other side run around, playing their game.

My friends sat their books on the table in front of us.

“Let’s play cards,” Courtney said, grabbing a deck of cards; then she opened them up, took the cards out, and began to shuffle them. Then she split the cards evenly between us.

We only knew of one game that we hadn’t made up, the game was; war. The object of the game was to have the most cards in the end. Everyone flipped their top card over, and the highest number won the war and took the other people’s flipped cards.

I organized my deck and flipped my first card over. It was a queen.

Lizzy flipped a two.

Sadie flipped a jack.

Courtney flipped an ace, and she took our cards.

We continued the game. I had the most cards for a while; then Lizzy started winning. She took most of our cards.

Eventually, I ran out of cards and was the first one out of the game, which wasn’t a surprise.

I stood up and walked to the shelves of books. Most of the covers were torn or the covers were scratched off. It was hard to tell which book was what.

My eyes fell on a book, and I took it out of the shelf. On the cover I could barely read:

Divergent

I slid it back into its place and took a mental note to read it sometime. It was pretty much the single and only book I hadn’t read yet, that I knew of. A vow was wrote into my mind, that someday I would read it. Someday I would know, what Divergent was all about, after I passed all of the shelves, I sat back down with my friends.

Courtney was out.

Once again, it was a duel between Sadie and Lizzy. Lizzy had the most cards, but Sadie had luck when it came to war.

Sadie won almost every game we played.

I thought she stacked her deck, but I knew she didn’t. At times she let us shuffle for her to make sure she didn’t cheat, even then she won.

I stood up and started to leave.

“Where do you always go?” I heard Sadie’s voice ask me.

I turned back around.

They had stopped their game for the time being. It wasn’t the first time any of them had asked me that question, but my answer was always the same.

I shrugged my shoulders and said, “My room. I like alone time.”

They continued, staring at me. I could tell they didn’t believe me. Once they said they had checked my room, looking for me, but I wasn’t where I said I had been.

“If you have a secret you can tell us,” Courtney said.

I thought about telling them the truth, I really did, but it was my secret. If anyone else found out that I had found a way onto the other side; then I would’ve been in trouble. “There’s no secret,” I replied; then I turned back around and left my friends in the library.

I walked down the opposite way of the hall from the Bedroom Hall, until I found the laundry room at the end.

I looked to my right, the glass was there. My hand grazed it as I walked to the wall on the far side from the doorway.

Still, I glanced at the other side to make sure no one had entered the laundry room. I reached the far wall and turned around. My left hand touched the glass.

No one was there, so I bent down slowly and carefully and grabbed the vent opening behind me with both of my hands. I took a small step forward and it popped off. Still no one had entered the room on either side.

I stuck my feet into the large vent and pushed myself in backwards, after my entire body was in, I pulled the vent cover up and set it back into place. My struggle was small, trying to fit it back on perfectly, until I heard the click that latched the cover back onto the wall.

My arms pushed and pushed, until my feet felt the end of the vent; then I looked to my left. I saw the opening right next to me.

I turned to my left, and I used all of my strength to pull myself through with my arms. The silver glowing metal felt cold on my hands, even after I reached my destination. I sat on my butt, so my hands no longer touched the metal beneath me.

I looked around at the walls that enclosed the space I sat in. The light, shining in the corner illuminated the walls of the enclosed space and the opening on the other side.

I smiled, glancing around the box and at my book. The book I had taken from the library so long ago.

Finally I was home.

I was in the box.