Chapter Text
It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected the cure. Everyone else in my family has had the procedure already. My older brother, Caleb, has been disease free for five years now. He’s been safe from love for so long; he says he can’t even remember its symptoms. I’m scheduled to have my procedure on September 15th. In exactly ninety-five days. The day of my eighteenth birthday.
Many people are afraid of the procedure. Some people even resist. But I’m not afraid. I can’t wait. I would have done it tomorrow, if I could, but you have to be at least eighteen, sometimes a little older, before the scientists will cure you. Otherwise the procedure won’t work correctly; People end up with brain damage, partial paralysis, blindness, or worse.
I don’t like to think that I’m still walking around with the disease running through my blood. Sometimes, I swear I can feel it writhing in my veins like something spoiled, like sour milk. It makes me feel dirty. It reminds me of children throwing tantrums. It reminds me of resistance, of diseased girls dragging their nails on the pavement, tearing out their hair, their mouths dripping spit.
And of course it reminds me of my father.
After the procedure I will be happy and safe forever. That’s what everybody says, the scientists and my brother and my aunt. I will have the procedure and then I’ll be paired with someone the evaluators will choose for me. In a few years, we’ll get married. Recently I’ve started having dreams about my wedding. They’re always vague, but when I turn to see who’s holding my hand, my vision blurs, like a camera going out of focus. Their hands are cool and dry, and my heart is beating steadily in my chest.
Safe, and free from pain.
Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness. That’s bad enough. The Book of Shhh also tells stories of those who died because of love lost, or love never gained, which terrifies me the most.
The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t.