Lauren Oliver - Delirium by Lauren Oliver Read Free Book Online Page A

amazing. The planning and all that. It would have taken at least four or five people--maybe more--to coordinate everything."

    I think briefly of the boy I saw on the observation deck, of his flashing, autumn-leaf-colored hair, and the way he tipped his head back when he laughed so I could see the vaulted black arch of his mouth. I told no one about him, not even Hana, and now I feel I should have.

    Hana goes on, "Someone must have had security codes. Maybe a sympathizer--"

    A door bangs loudly at the front of the locker room, and Hana and I both jump, staring at each other with wide eyes. Footsteps click quickly across the linoleum. After a few seconds of hesitation, Hana launches smoothly into a safe topic: the color of the graduation gowns, which are orange this year. Just then Mrs. Johanson, the athletic director, comes around the bank of lockers, swinging her whistle around one finger.

    "At least they're not brown, like at Fielston Prep," I say, though I'm barely listening to Hana. My heart is pounding and I'm still thinking about the boy, and wondering whether Johanson heard us say the word sympathizer. She doesn't do anything but nod as she passes us, so it seems unlikely.

    I've learned to get really good at this--say one thing when I'm thinking about something else, act like I'm listening when I'm not, pretend to be calm and happy when really I'm freaking out. It's one of the skills you perfect as you get older. You have to learn that people are always listening. The first time I ever used the cell phone that my aunt and uncle share, I was surprised by the patchy interference that kept breaking up my conversation with Hana at random intervals, until my aunt explained that it was just the government's listening devices, which arbitrarily cut into cell phone calls, recording them, monitoring conversations for target words like love, or Invalids, or sympathizer. No one in particular is targeted; it's all done randomly, to be fair. But it's almost worse that way. I pretty much always feel as though a giant, revolving gaze is bound to sweep over me at any second, lighting up my bad thoughts like an animal lit still and white in the ever-turning beam of a lighthouse.

    Sometimes I feel as though there are two me's, one coasting directly on top of the other: the superficial me, who nods when she's supposed to nod and says what she's supposed to say, and some other, deeper part, the part that worries and dreams and says "Gray." Most of the time they move along in sync and I hardly notice the split, but sometimes it feels as though I'm two whole different people and I could rip apart at any second. Once I confessed this to Rachel. She just smiled and told me it would all be better after the procedure. After the procedure, she said, it would be all coasting, all glide, every day as easy as one, two, three.

    "Ready," I say, spinning my locker closed. We can still hear Mrs. Johanson shuffling around in the bathroom, whistling. A toilet flushes. A faucet goes on.

    "My turn to pick the route," Hana says, eyes sparkling, and before I can open my mouth to protest, she lunges forward and smacks me on the shoulder. "Tag. You're it," she says, and just as easily spins off the bench and sprints for the door, laughing, so I have to run to catch up.

    Earlier in the day it rained, and the storm cooled everything off. Water evaporates from puddles in the streets, leaving a shimmering layer of mist over Portland. Above us the sky is now a vivid blue. The bay is flat and silver, the coast like a giant belt cinched around it, keeping it in place.

    I don't ask Hana where she's going, but it doesn't surprise me when she starts winding us toward Old Port, toward the old footpath that runs along Commercial Street and up to the labs. We try to keep on the smaller, less trafficked streets, but it's pretty much a losing game. It's three thirty. All the schools have been released, and the streets surge with students walking home. A few buses