At first, Ruth finds herself in Hillshire. She lives there, they all tell her, but she was not born there.
And she wonders where, then—where? If this isn't the place she belongs in, then what's the point of staying?
She makes herself a promise: she will get out of here. And she will be majestic, for Ruth is as much a queen as the flower crowns Cathy weaves and places on her head.
She makes up stories.
Gossip, tantalizing and tingling, horror stories about the outside world—children who get their hands and feet cut off, eyelids that have been laced together, mouths sewn shut, screams punctuating the air. Ghost stories, and she spreads them around because it's the popular thing to do, and Ruth is popular and pretty and well-liked by everyone.
Cathy sometimes hangs there, outside the door, alone, while Ruth spins her evil tales. Cathy doesn't have the horrified or scared look of the younger children.
Cathy looks bold as she stands alone. As if she's agreeing with Ruth on all her tales, and saying, yes, I know. I know these stories, and I will be prepared. I can take it.
Ruth has never been able to take it. Cathy scares her.
Ruth loves Cathy.
She loves Cathy, and she sees Cathy watching Tommy, distantly, a small smile on her face. And Ruth, Ruth hates being alone, so she steals Tommy away one day.
She'll take him first, so Cathy won't stand a chance and so Cathy won't leave her.
Hillshire is prettier from the outside.
She's leaving, leaving this shelter she had once promised herself to leave, and lets the strangers drive her away.
She feels Cathy staring at Tommy, so she leans her head against his shoulder.
The strangers are odd, with their new ways sewn like patchwork onto old ones, with their lovey-dovey commercials and sloppy kisses and public displays of affection.
She tries it on Tommy, but even she feels it's weird. Cathy sets it straight to her face that it's not Ruth, but Ruth doesn't know what "Ruth" even is, so she doesn't stop it.
She sleeps with Tommy for the first time, and it's loud, and she gets a sick satisfaction in her stomach when Cathy won't meet her eyes in the morning.
Cathy never forgave her.
(Ruth never forgave herself, either.)
The woman looks a bit like her, but it's not an exact match, and it isn't her original.
So she cries and breaks down and hurts, hurts, and this time even Cathy can't comfort her and so Ruth blames Cathy. It's wrong, and mean and hurtful but Ruth is always not enough, not good enough.
Because clones aren't humans to the world. They're imitations and imposters, and they hold inside themselves the key for others to live long past what they deserve.
She's just a donation. To the world.
She remembers what being a queen feels like, and she can't help but think to her reflection, it felt real. It felt human. Why am I not a human? What makes me so different?
She dreams of a girl who looks just like her standing in front of her. She doesn't know if it's herself or her original.
She strangles her to death.
Tommy is bursting with affection and full of energy, and Ruth is just—so unlike him.
Cathy is.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ruth catches Cathy chattering with Tommy, gently swaying their hands together as they walk. They're not even touching, and it seems like they've agreed to some sort of clockwork—it's easy, flowing, and natural.
When Ruth talks to Tommy his eyes are always averted from hers, as if he's imaging green instead of brown, and light hair instead of dark.
And Ruth—Ruth is so tired of not being enough, for Tommy, for Cathy, and for the whole world, because the world sees her as inferior and un-human and trash.
So she goes to Cathy, the smell of Tommy and what they did lingering on her skin, and tells the other girl a story that'll make her go.
So she does.
Tommy breaks them up.
He doesn't even have to say it. She sees it in his eyes.
She falls back against the counter, feeling the cold marble touch her skin. Her eyes blur. Tommy's standing there, looking alone and lost like the little boy he was in Hillshire.
This wasn't supposed to happen. She hadn't meant to—she wasn't supposed to have done this—
"I'm sorry," she sobs, and she cries, falling hard into the counter. Tommy shakes his head solemnly, takes her into his arms, and lets her cry on him.
He strokes her hair, and she remembers lying and Cathy and flower crowns. She doesn't feel majestic anymore.
So they take her kidney first.
Don't worry, you'll still have some time. A few years. They tell her this as they cheerfully package away something that had been hers, something that had been inside of her and helped her survive and live and breathe—
They've taken it, and soon they take another, and another, and another. Ruth quietly waits for the day where they'll take her hands and feet (they found him in the forest, with his hands and feet cut off) and she won't stop them because she knows that when the time comes, she'll deserve it.
She meets a man on a street one day while she's walking. He's an outsider, a human.
But he, like her, is also alone.
So they sit down and talk. She asks him.
"What do you do?"
He frowns. "What?"
"With all that…time?" she makes an obscure hand gesture, waving and twisting, to signify time. She doesn't really understand what it is, because she has so little of it. She thinks that they may never be able to get acquainted.
The man shrugs. "Become wise and great and wonderful, I guess."
"And are you wise and great and wonderful yet?" she asks.
He smiles. "Getting there."
They kiss, and do other things, and she can tell that he likes her. He's a human and he likes her! The feelings of happiness and of finally being complete, of being enough are flooding through her, and when she wakes up in his apartment she thanks him.
"So what about you?" he asks. "Are you wise and great and wonderful yet?"
She doesn't answer, just grins maliciously, bitter and glinting until her eyes are sparkling with tears.
So they take her lung next.
When she wakes up she finds it a bit difficult to breathe, and she panics a little, flails on the bed, screams and hisses and bites, and the doctors have to call out for nurses and help and sedate her.
The second time she wakes up, her carer is there and so is the same sinking feeling—she can't breathe.
"Why?" she asks softly, tears falling.
Her carer just shakes her head, offers a bitter smile. "Sometimes we need to give to be able to receive."
Ruth thinks about this for awhile, and then makes her decision.
She'll find out what she can about surviving this. But not for herself; for a boy and a girl she once knew.
Cathy finds her first.
Ruth takes her to Tommy and sees the way they embrace each other, notices the way Tommy only ruffles her hair a little and kisses her cheek, while he hugs Cathy tightly (never let me go, and it was a song she's seen Cathy listen to, over and over and over again-). She notices how healthy Cathy looks and how strong Tommy is—even without a lung.
And she tells them that, even if they never forgive her, that it's okay, and she'll be okay, but she wants them to have their chance, because she took it away from them. Their expressions change.
I'll make it up to you, she thinks sadly at the both of them, because—she had been in love with both of them before, and she still loves them, and she wants them to kiss her and love her and not-leave her.
She needs them, but not as much, she knows, as they need each other.
So she lets them go.
It breaks her heart.
But she still does it.
(Never Let Me Go)
Cathy sees her for the very last time.
"We're applying for it." She says. "Just thought you ought to know." And though Cathy is the kindest, most forgiving person Ruth's ever known, there is something steely and cold in her eyes when she looks at Ruth.
This is goodbye, Ruth realizes.
And Ruth wants, so desperately, to convince Cathy to forgive her and love her again, for Cathy to remember flower crowns, and girlhood, and scary stories, and—
Ruth says nothing, but she wants to say a million. I'm sorry, and also, be well, and good luck, and goodbye.
But mostly, for Cathy and Tommy,
take care of each other.
So they take her heart last.
Ruth's heart is an old one, worn and broken and re-stitched over and over again, and she doesn't know why they would want it anyway, but she agrees for the surgery, and as she walks towards the cold, metal table, she sees the doctors glance at her, their eyes judgmental and the drafts of superiority coming off in waves.
They think she isn't human. They think she can't hurt them, and that she's weak and an imitation and only usable for one purpose only.
But she holds her head high, because she knows that she isn't any of those. She isn't weak, she isn't an imitation, and she has definitely, definitely hurt people before. But her purpose is the only thing they're accurate on, because she's never been good enough for anything else other than saving their lives.
They won't be able to call me un-human when I'm dead, she thinks confidently. Dead is being human. Dead is morality, and that's why they're frightened of it. And that's why they need people like me to help them cheat death, over and over again.
They won't be able to think of her as inferior when she's dead. They'll have to put her at their level, then—she'll have to be a real person when her body's decayed and when they see the thing that they're so frightened of becoming.
So she holds her head high and doesn't beg or scream or cry like the others do.
When she's dead, she'll be able to say, if there were ever anyone to tell, that being human was great, I once fell in love with two people and then took both of them away from me, and now I'm dead and more alive and human than ever, how about you?
They'll be able to see her as a real, true person once she's lying still and bleeding on the table.
Because it's death, and it's something they're afraid of, but it's her proof, and her last testimony.
They'll never be able to deny her that when she's dead. It's very, very real.
And it's very, very human.