Love is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Author:Alaya Dawn Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2014-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

Nicky comes to visit the day after their school arrest. He and Aaron take a walk together while Bird and Marella sit on the bench by the rose bridge in puffy winter coats.

“What exactly happens to you if you try to leave?” Marella asks without looking up from some lumpy object she’s attempting to knit with green yarn.

“Someone drags me back?” Bird yawns and watches the soldiers watching Nicky and Aaron. “Either that or they shoot me.”

“Some of that infamous Coffee paranoia rubbing off, huh?”

“Like all this wouldn’t make anyone paranoid. I mean, look at you.”

“Look at what?”

“Marella, you’re knitting. Not doing homework, not hanging out with a hot girl —”

“Don’t sell yourself short, honey. Coffee thinks you’re pretty fine.”

Bird buries her hands in her coat sleeves. “Coffee thinks …” I can’t tell you what I feel for you. She shakes her head. “Whatever, the point is that you are doing a deliberately mindless activity. Not very well.”

Marella squints at the lumpy green square. “I just started! And with all the time we’ve been spending in the shelter, I’ll get plenty of practice.”

“Exactly. You are changing your activities in response to repeated stress. Tell me you don’t feel a little worried around these soldiers every day.”

They fall silent as a soldier speaks into a walkie-talkie and slings one of those black automatics over her shoulder. A pair of helicopters make a low pass overhead.

“Not like they’re going to shoot me,” she says, but without much conviction.

“I take it you haven’t met Roosevelt.”

“Bird, you make this guy sound like Dr. Evil. I’m the last person to tell you people can’t be real douches, but this is Devonshire, not Afghanistan. What’s the worst he can do?”

“He gave my boyfriend a date rape drug to mix with my drink and I ended up in the hospital. I still don’t remember what happened to me. And I’m telling you, he’s capable of more. So yeah, let’s call it justified paranoia.”

Marella puts down her knitting and rubs Bird’s arm. “Right. Pure evil. Bird, what does he want with you?”

Bird lifts her feet onto the bench and presses her face against her knees. “That’s the worst part. I don’t really know. I think it has something to do with my parents. Or that he thinks I know something. I mean, in full paranoia mode I think I must know some major state secret that could bring down the government, I just have to figure out what it is. Though that doesn’t explain why he’s gunning for Coffee too.” It’s been a relief to let Marella in on her private nightmare; the perspective of someone not directly involved makes her feel a little more human.

“So, he’s watching you. And he’s working with Paul or using him or whatever, and that’s why you and Aaron are under school arrest. But has he done anything since? I mean, let’s say that you did forget some huge state secret. Well, as long as you don’t do anything, then

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