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“Just wondering how the interrogation went? All good?”
“It went okay,” I write back. “Long story.”
“Do you want to meet me? I could use someone to talk to.”
His words surprise me, and I start to worry.
“Sure. In one hour outside the Starbucks by the hospital?” I suggest.
“Cool, see you then.”
I look at Yoru. He understands immediately and gets up and goes to the door.
We leave the school premises together and take a bus to the hospital. The Starbucks is close by. Yoru is already making himself scarce, ducking behind cars and houses as I look around for a suitable spot to wait for Noah. But I don’t need to, because I suddenly feel a hand on my shoulder and turn around. Noah looks pale, tense, and anxious.
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods mutely and turns to his right. We walk side by side for a while.
“Tell me, what happened in the interrogation?” he asks eventually.
I take a deep breath and tell him everything. “I don’t know if there’s anything I could have done to stop it. Maybe I should have been more vehement.” I sigh and feel this impotent rage seething inside me. It’s directed at the Council, for dictating to me and controlling my life, but also at myself for not standing my ground.
“There’s nothing you could have done. It sounds like the Fabricis planned it all out in advance. You couldn’t have persuaded them to change their minds. They’re Council members, and you’re just a student. No matter what you said, it wouldn’t have made any difference.”
Noah’s probably right. My hands are tied.
“Have you heard of this destiny test?” I shoot a hopeful glance at him.
Noah shakes his head. “No, sorry. But I’ll ask around and search through some books. Maybe I’ll find something.” He doesn’t sound too confident, but I’m grateful that he wants to try.
When I look at him again, his expression changes. Is that bitterness? At what was lost between us? Disappointment? Wistfulness? I can’t say.
“You’re not doing so good,” I observe. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
He gulps. I can see that he’s conflicted. I’ve never known him to be so withdrawn and anxious.
“Is it about your parents? Did you talk to them?”
“I tried to talk to them about my birth,” Noah admits.
I don’t probe, just give him the space to speak when he’s ready.
“My mother… she… acted kind of weird. She didn’t want to talk about it, and she got pretty angry when I refused to drop it.”
“So you think there’s something to it?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. But her reaction was… strange, I have to admit.”
I wish I could be there for Noah, but I don’t know what to say or do. We were so close until recently, and it would have been the most normal thing in the world to just hug him. But now… since we broke up, everything’s different.
So I just give him a sympathetic look to show that I understand. But judging by his pale face and lusterless eyes, this doesn’t get through to him.
“I get how hard it must be. I mean, this is about your life, your family. Everything you believed in could be destroyed in one fell swoop. I can’t even imagine how that feels.”
He nods slowly but says nothing. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something else. I study the side of his face. His sad eyes are so full of pain.
“Noah, what is it? There’s something else.”
