“Hey.” It was the best he could do.
“Hi,” Teresa replied. She gave another shy smile. A smile Thomas could swear he’d seen at some point before today, in this very room.
But now wasn’t the time to dwell on what might have happened—he had all the time in the world to think about the weirdness later. He motioned around him. “Why did they put us in here?”
“I don’t know. They wanted us to meet and talk, I guess.”
She hadn’t gotten his point—he wondered if maybe that was her attempt at sarcasm. “How long have you lived here?”
“Since I was five.”
Thomas looked at her, tried to guess her age, gave up. “So…”
“So four years,” she said.
“You’re only nine?”
“Yeah. Why? How old are you?”
Thomas wasn’t sure he knew the answer to that question. He figured that was close enough. “Same. You just seem older is all.”
“I’ll be ten soon. Haven’t you been here just as long?”
“Yeah.”
Teresa shifted in her seat, pulled one of her legs under her body and sat on it. Thomas didn’t think it looked particularly comfortable but loved that she seemed a little more at ease. The same was true for him—the more they spoke, the more that disorienting pulse of déjà vu retreated to the background.
“Why do they keep some of us separate?” she asked. “I can hear other kids screaming and laughing all the time. And I’ve seen the big cafeteria. It’s gotta feed hundreds.”
“So they bring your food to your room, too?”
Teresa nodded. “Three times a day. Most of it tastes like a toilet.”
“You know what a toilet tastes like?” He held his breath, hoping it wasn’t too soon for a joke.
Teresa didn’t miss a beat. “Can’t be worse than the food they give us.”
Thomas let out a genuine laugh that felt great. “Heh. You’re right.”
“There must be something different about us,” Teresa said, suddenly getting serious. It threw Thomas a bit. “Don’t you think?”
Thomas gave his best impression of an intelligent, thinking nod. He didn’t want to give away that the idea had never occurred to him. “I guess. There has to be a reason we’re kept alone. But it’s hard to guess what when we don’t even know why we’re here.” He frowned on the inside, hoped it didn’t show on the outside. He’d said the word guess twice, and the whole thing had sounded stupid.
Teresa didn’t seem to think so. “I know. Is your life pretty much school stuff from the wake-up to lights-out?”
“Just about.”
Teresa nodded, then said almost absently, “They keep telling me how smart I am.”
“Me too. It’s weird.”
“I think it all has something to do with the Flare. Did your parents catch it before WICKED took you?”
All the joy Thomas had started allowing himself to feel came to a grinding halt. He suddenly saw his dad, drunk with rage, his mom saying goodbye to him when he wasn’t even five years old. He tried to shut the vision out.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” he said.
“Why not?” Teresa asked.
“I just don’t.”
“Fine, then. Me neither.” She didn’t seem mad.
“Why are we in here, anyway?” Once again, he gestured at the tiny room where they sat. “Seriously, what’re we supposed to be doing?”
Teresa folded her arms and let her leg drop back down to the floor. “Talking. Being tested. I don’t know. Sorry being around me is so boring for you.”
“Huh? Now you’re mad?”
“No, I’m not mad. You just don’t seem very nice. I kind of liked the idea of finally having a friend.”
Thomas wanted to slap himself. “Sorry. That sounds kind of good to me, too.” He didn’t know if this meeting could have gone any worse.
Teresa let him off the hook with another smile. “Then maybe we passed the test. Maybe they wanted to see if we’d get along.”
“Whatever,” he said with a smile of his own. “I quit guessing about things a long time ago.”
After a long pause, she said, “So…friends?”
“Friends.”
Teresa held out her hand over the desk. “Shake on it.”
“Okay.” He leaned forward and they shook on it.
Teresa sat back in her chair, and her expression shifted again. “Hey, does your brain hurt sometimes? I mean, not just like a normal headache, but deep down inside your skull?”
Thomas could only imagine the look of shock on his face. “What? Are you serious? Yes!” He was just about to bring up his terrible morning headache—maybe even the feelings of having done this before—when she held a finger to her lips.
“Quiet, someone’s coming. We’ll talk about it later.”
How she’d known, Thomas had no clue. He hadn’t heard anything, but someone knocked at the door a moment after she spoke. A second later it opened and Dr. Leavitt popped his head through the crack.
“Hello, kids,” he said brightly. He looked from Thomas to Teresa. “Time’s up for today. Let’s get you back to your rooms. We think this went well, so there’ll be plenty more opportunities to get to know each other.”
Thomas exchanged a glance with Teresa. He wasn’t totally sure what her eyes said, but he really did believe he had a new friend. They got up from their chairs and moved toward Leavitt. Thomas was thankful for even the short time they’d been given, and would keep his fingers crossed that the good behavior would truly lead to more meetings, as promised.