Reality
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Matched
Copyright: Ally Condie
When Indie kisses me, I think of Cassia – but not in the way I should. I don't feel as if I'm betraying her. I'm only amazed at how far away she suddenly seems.
Cassia was my ideal, what the artists of old used to call my muse. I believed in her the way many of the comrades believe in the Rising, but what did I really believe? That she was worthy of love, certainly. But did I believe our love was really meant to last? If I had, would I have felt so threatened by Xander, or burned the map to where she wanted to go? I think I've known all along that I would lose her. We are too different, one too naïve and one too pessimistic; in the end, it never would have worked.
Indie is no one's ideal. Indie, stealing from Cassia only to give everything back, deducing Xander's secret, cracking jokes in the co-pilot's seat, diving into the water like a redheaded mermaid, glowing with faith in the Pilot and the Rising, reading me like a book. Selfish, heroic, deceptive, honest, loyal, lonely and brave.
Indie is solid reality, and her kiss rages through me like a forest fire, death and heat and renewal all at once.
"I've been waiting so long for a moment like this," she whispers.
"So have I."
"You don't think I'm crazy?" She grins at me like a naughty little girl. "For doing this."
"Oh, believe me, you are," I tell her. "In all the right ways."
And then I kiss her again.