The Undesirable (Undesirable Series) by S. Celi Page B

into the apartment. I made sure the hallway appeared deserted before I shut the door. 
    “This is like a regular thing. I stop here almost every night.” He flopped down on the loveseat. I could only stare back at him.
    Didn’t he care about what happened today?
    “Don’t your parents wonder if you’re here? They have to,” I wondered aloud. My gut sensed the awkwardness ahead.
    “No. They’re distracted, like I told you,” he replied. “Everyone is. And I’m 19, Charlotte. You’re 18. We’re not kids anymore.” He shrugged.
    I shut the door, and then reached for the remote to turn down the volume on the state propaganda scrolling across the 4-D TV. A newscaster narrated video about the latest British general The Party killed. I didn’t take a place next to him. Instead, I sat in the wooden chair.
    Fostino frowned. “What? What’s going on?”
    “Does it not even matter to you what happened today?”
    “Oh, that.” He gulped. “Right. Well, I—“
    THAT? Did it mean so little to him? Really?
    I shook my head and glared at him. “I watched you today,” I said. “I saw you stand there, stone faced. You just watched it happen. Like it didn’t even matter to you an innocent person stood accused of… of… of whatever!” I pushed back on the wooden chair. Anger ran through my body in hot waves.
    “What am I supposed to do?” Fostino looked at the dusty wooden floor.
    I exploded. “I don’t know! It’s so horrible. Do you really think so many Undesirables hide in our town?”
    He shrugged and kept his eyes on the grooves in the floor.
    Oh my God. He did.
    “This is wrong. No freedom. No rights. No hope. This will never end until we all die. They’ll kill us all. Can’t you see?”
    He put one hand over his eyes. “Look, it’s not like I wanted to be there today. They made us go.” When he took his hand off his eyes, his face had paled. “I had to be there. I had no choice. Besides, like I said, we have to find the Undesirables.”
    “There’s no way Marcy was an Undesirable.”
    “You don’t know that,” he whispered.
    I threw up my hands. “Can’t you see what’s happening? They’re killing everyone. They’re killing anyone.”
    “There will be people alive at the end of all this. I know. And I plan for us to be two of them.”
    How could I be around someone who would think all this was okay ?
    “Why? They made us slaves. What do we have to live for?” My words pushed through my teeth as fast as bullets.
    “I know you don’t want to work within the system,” he sighed. “But I don’t know any other way. Right now, I don’t. ”
    “Oh, my God.” I pinched my nose between my thumb and my forefinger. An ache formed in the front of my head. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you would be fine with this. I can’t believe The Party would be okay with this. My mom is dead. They murdered her and they would have killed others!”
    He ran a hand through his hair. “Look. I’m not happy about it. It hurts me too. Don’t you see? But what do you want me do?” he asked. “This is the way things are right now.”
    “Well not for everyone,” I said in a soft voice. “What about the people who joined the SSR? What if we joined?”
    “No. No way.” Fostino fixed his eyes on me. They turned black and hard. “I can’t believe you would even talk like that.” His voice sounded firm.
    “Why not?” I demanded as I balanced my chin in my left hand. My words came out like arrows headed for a target. “Why not? Tell me. Now. You. Tell. Me. Now.”
    Fostino’s jaw flexed and he pointed out the window. “If you think what’s going on out there is bad, life with the SSR is worse. Much worse. Jesus, Charlotte. Why can’t you get it? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone— and for sure not on you.”
    I wanted to ask him to explain, but I did not. The weight of this conversation stifled me.
    “I know you really do care about me,” I admitted. It was the truth, but I also