Page 43 of The Last Love Story

I’ve seen the capital on news streams, but it’s so much bigger than a tablet screen. It’s one of the only original cities that has survived the Streamlining.Historical significance, the administration said. No one said the same thing whenMiami and New York disappeared into the sea. Metal buildings are fortified with chrome bracing, reinforcing where the foundation has given way because of the acid rain. The fake-looking blue water must be so chemical-ridden that I’m pretty sure anyone who drank it would drop dead within minutes. The Washington Monument towers above it all, shiny rose-gold plating embossed with a profile of President Graves’s face.

In the crowd, I recognize faces from my DopaMine, the pretty people who tell us everything from how to wear our hair to how the war is going overseas. Nerves rush through me. They’re capturing me, frozen here on the tarmac, and these images will fill other people’s feeds.

Through the cold white light, a slim form races across the blacktop to me.

“Ettie?” I ask, half laughing. The last time I saw her, she was six, interrupting me and Callum. She pestered me to paint her nails in this swimming-pool pattern she had seen on her feed. Callum pretended to be annoyed, but he’d helped her pick a color from my desk and reminded her not to move while I worked.

Now she’s a teenager. Her face has lost all traces of the round, baby-like smile I remember, leaving high cheekbones and a small, turned-up nose that wrinkles as she grins. Her soft pink dress flutters behind her with her soft blond hair, and for a moment it looks like she has wings. Ettie has become a princess from a fairy tale.

I wonder if I look as strange to her, in this dress they’ve put me in. Did they pick her clothes, too, or is that only reserved for fake fiancées?

“I am so excited,” she says as we hug, and it feels as natural as breathing. “I didn’t know you and Callum were still talking! I was sopissedthat he didn’t tell me!”

My heart sinks as I realize the lie I have to tell. Of course. We can’t announce that this whole fiancée arrangement was a planned PR stunt. I just didn’t realize we’d be lying to everyone.

Unsure what to say, I let Ettie squeeze me and breathe in her familiar smell, peony and laundry detergent.

“Come on,” she whispers as she draws back. “I’m supposed to show you around.”

On reflex, I reach for my mask, but they took it with the rest of my things.

“They’ll give your tablet back—”

“No,” I say quickly. “My mask?”

Ettie shakes her head. “You don’t need that here.”

I gape, looking up.

The sky is darkening—we only have about an hour of daylight left. But I can see the actualblue.A dark blue, tinged with orange and purple at the edges where it curves into the earth.

“Wow,” I whisper. “I can’t remember the last time I saw the sky.”

The moment is shattered by a wave of laughter. I had forgotten our audience—the dozens here, and the millionswatching at home. My cheeks color. Every moment here—every first, with and without Callum—will be cataloged and shared with an entire nation hungry for a distraction after a shift at the data mines or a long day cataloging data. And I’m gawping up at the sky like a simpleton.

But they wanted a real girl, didn’t they?The girl next door, Callum had said.

Well, none of my neighbors have ever been able to see the sky.

“You’ve been on the West Coast too long,” Ettie says with a social laugh. “My dad has been cleaning up the air. It’s a different world, here in New Washington.” I accept her elbow, and she leads me through the crowd, which parts for us to pass, revealing a streetscape bright with holoscreens and a massive metallic dome. She gives me a look and says, “Good.”

“Good what?” I breathe.

“You actually look impressed. They’ll love it.”

I don’t know how to say Iamimpressed.

“Keep that up when you see yournew home,” she says. “I mean, Dad’s been trying for eight years to get the stains off the stone, but it still sort of looks like shit.”

I flinch. The swear feels unnatural coming out of her rosy lips. A laugh bubbles up in my throat and in reply she pinches my arm.

“What?” she presses. As we cut down the mall, the invisible bubble around us seems to extend. People walking,zipping on escooters, racing on hoverboards; they all move away, maintaining a football field’s distance. It takes a few moments to notice the Hammers, holding a perfect periphery. Of course. Ettie is the president’s daughter and I’m the soon-to-be daughter-in-law.

I shake my head. “Ettie, you’re not a baby anymore. It’s freaking me out.”

She snorts. “Tell that to my dad. And Callum. They don’t let me do anything. Callum is worried I’ll get hurt. But I think Dad would be more upset that the press will get a bad photo.”

I can hear the slight tinge of bitterness in her voice, and I understand. At least Callum got to be a kid before he was thrust into the public eye. She grew up like this.