The next week was filled with school work, tests, and barely any human interaction. I feel like I'm going out of my mind. Everything I have learned, perfected, over the years has been taken from me, and I am left floating in a sea of average.

I found myself mostly looking at my Test score. Seeing my score on my tablet is a quiet reassurance of my placement in the Innercity. I also made me feel better about Andrew.

I was suppose to be here, even if he isn't.

We were never going to work.

I'm doing fine in my classes. The work isn't that challenging, but whenever a teacher wanted to talk to me, a student wanted to invite me to a party, or when I was welcomed into a study group, my tablet would vibrate. My stalker never slept.

I had sacrificed everything for my status with my peers. I went to party after party with my mother. I dedicated countless hours to volunteering, event planning, and student councils. All that time was supposed to be for this moment. I was going to make connections, make my way into the Innercity to do...whatever I'm going to do.

The Commons Room in the girl's dorm is the only place that my stalker allows me to hang out. Apparently, the Library and the Dinning Hall are fine too. If I watch who I talk to.

The Commons Room is large, giving students plenty of room to study, talk, or hang out with friends. Plush, bright blue couches line the area with enlarged tablet screens hanging from pillars sprinkled throughout the space. A few other students linger, but not many. It's nine o'clock on a Friday, and most students are throwing dorm parties or attending dorm parties.

There's isn't any real reason for me to be in the Commons Room. I just can't stand to be in my dorm another minute.

Jennifer's nice but watching her getting ready for dorm parties is unbearable. Tonight's even more unbearable because it's Emma's party. It's almost as painful as Emma's face when I told her I couldn't go. My best friend for three years looked at me like a stranger.

"What do you mean you can't?" She has said to me with her hand on her hip. She was wearing her silver shimmery shirt with black heels.

"I just have a lot of work to do." I rubbed between my eyes.

"Really? Your excuses haven't changed." I opened my mouth, but she scoffed, "Whatever, stay here with Ida. I don't care."

Jennifer watched us, waiting by our door. Her narrowed eyes shifted between me and Emma.

Reading her mind, my heart fell. Then hardened.

"Emma, just because I can't go to your party, doesn't mean it's the end of the Great City. Sorry if some people have something better to do, and actually want a future." I stood from my bed and crossed my arms. My eyes narrowed, daring her.

Fear sparked in Emma's eyes before being replaced by irritation. But she knew better than to say anything.

Emma flipped her hair and marched out of the dorm. Jennifer followed behind her, but before she slipped through the door, she hesitantly glanced back at me. I nodded my head.

She left.

Ida watched me under her hair with her new tablet in her hands. Ignoring her, I grabbed my tablet and left for the Commons Room.

I bury my face in my hands and sigh. I don't know how much longer I can do this.

I grunt and sink more into the couch cushions.

"On," I mumble to the screen hanging over me.

The screen flashes on, and a smiling reporter appears. Her raven hair is pulled behind her head, and her amber eyes shine through the screen.

"One of our reporters had the luck of catching up with Alexa Goodwill. She had a few words to say about her daughter's Test results and her admission into the Innercity Training Facility."

The scene changes from the amber eyed reporter to my mother sitting across from a good looking blonde man. My mother is dressed in Innercity blue with her hair up. Her makeup brings out her blue eyes and golden hair. Many of my mother's friends say I look just like her.

She smiles at the man with her hands folded in front of her.

"I'm glad to be here." She replies to whatever the interviewer said.

The man smiles and crosses his legs, "Isn't true your daughter took the Test this year?"

"Yes, and I was told the she just completed her first week in the ITF." Mother replies with a grin.

"We have heard impressive things about your daughter. You both seemed very close."

"My daughter and I are."

"Do you think she'll follow in your footsteps?" The interviewer injects.

My mother's smile doesn't waver. I sit up straighter and lean closer to the screen.

"I believe she'll do amazing things, and I wouldn't be surprised if I found her interning under the Test Corporation. Well, not under me, of course." She folds her legs and leans back into her chair. "TC has gotten the overall results of this year's test." She raises her brow.

"I heard they were record breaking."

"They are the most shocking this year! 89 percent of students from the Innercity stayed in the Innercity. This just proves that our school system is—"

"Next," I interrupt my mother. As interesting as this interview is, I can only take so much news about me.

The screen changes to another reporter. I'm about to change the channel again, vaguely wondering who was watching all these news channels, but the reporter stops me. A woman stands on the screen with her arms around her waist, holding herself up. Her face is filled with terror and worry.

"—situation on the Outercity border. Gang violence has erupted again, and the border guards have been working tirelessly to push the gangs back. There are rumors of a coalition—"

The reporter's words fade as I watch a string of images. Angry faces covered in paint and mud push against border guards, holding blue shields. The camera moves to reveal a man, wearing a mask with painted shark teeth, shooting at the border guards' shields.

Fire rages from the buildings, making rubble fall onto the crowds of people. Smoke hides the Outsiders' faces. I watch one man throw a bottle at the border guard's shield. The bottle bounces off the shield and falls into another building, erupting it in flames.

The camera cuts to an Innercity border camp. It moves to show a nurse wrapping gauze around a border guard's shoulder. Other bandaged guards walk behind the nurse with determined grimaces. I can't look way from the pink stained gauze on each of the guards.

"—need more care once returning to the Innercity or Middlecity Patrol Stations. There have been some rumors of violence inside the Outercity from—"

"Off!" I almost yell.

The screen blinks off, and the room fills with silence. My heart punches against my chest. I grab my tablet and sprint out of the Commons Room. My breath comes out in gasps. My fingertips turn cold then numb.

I try to calm myself down, but the more I try, the harder it gets to breathe.

Thinking of his whispered promises and caressing touches. Inhale. I can picture Andrew's face, freckles, blue eyes, and his dimple on his right cheek. Inhale. I see his beanie head in the middle of a shooting. Inhale. He could be walking the streets right now and be shot, and I wouldn't even know. Inhale. His flesh could be burning off. Inhale. His screams pierce my ears. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale.

Some part of me knows the Outercity is the biggest city, and just because some radical gang decided to attack the border doesn't mean Andrew is there. It doesn't mean he's hurt.

My fingers tighten around my tablet, wanting the confirmation from my scores.

I'm supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be here.

And he is supposed to be there.

I burst through my dorm room. My fingers clinch my chest as I collapse on my bed. I hiccup and choke on my own mucus climbing up my throat.

Someone grabs me and pushes my head between my legs. I don't even put up a fight.

"Breathe. In. Out. Breathe."

I follow their instructions, letting the air through my nose. My chest shakes against the oxygen. I squeeze my eyes shut.

"In through you nose. Out through your mouth. Breathe."

I hear their breathing next to my ear. My breaths follow their rhythm. The cool air passes through my nose and escapes out my mouth. With each breath, my muscles relax one by one. All the tension and flight running through me gives up. My limbs are noodles.

I don't open my eyes, not wanting to provoke my body to attack me again.

Someone touches my shoulder and nudges me to lay on the bed. A warm blanket descends over my body, and I curl up into it, letting the soft cotton smother me.

***

I don't fall asleep. As much as I want to, the itching in the back of my brain scratches harder and harder with each breath. My fingers squeeze into my comforter. I need my tablet, need to look at my scores again. All I can see is my first score, the word "Outercity" bleeding into my vision. But I can make it go away.

If I see my score again.

I watch Ida between the blanket and my comforter and try not to think about how she forced my head down or her soothing voice. I wonder why she knew what was happening to me, and how she knows how to handle it. But I can't ignore this feeling of failure growing in the pit of my stomach.

She saw me vulnerable, and I can never take that back.

For the pass half hour, Ida has been drawing and glancing at me ever so often. When she isn't busy studying me, I'm studying her. She hovers over her paper, guarding her creation from prying eyes, even though we're the only ones here. Her pencil moves over the page with vigor strokes. Her finger tips rub the paper, morphing the picture to her vision.

She stops, and with a sudden sweep, lifts her hands off the page. Her eyes twitch back and forth, then her fingers pitch both corners of the paper, and she holds up it up. She studies it once more before tucking it in a notebook and hiding it under her mattress.

She takes a deep breath and runs her fingers though her hair. My eyes follow her around the room as she plucks some clothes out of her drawer, grabs toiletries, and heads for the door. Before the door shuts, she glances at my pile of blankets. For a moment, I think she knows I'm awake.

She closes the door behind her.

Once the door clicks, I throw the blanket off me. My hands pat the comforter, searching. Unsatisfied, I sit on my knees and try to get a better view of the room. I still don't see it. Disappointment fills me. I sit back on my heels. My mind turns and calculates if I grabbed it or dropped it on the way to the room.

Then I see it on the floor, halfway covered by my bed skirt.

I lean and pluck my tablet off the floor. The cool metal sits in my palm. My finger hovers over the clear material, watching my reflection shimmer in the blank screen. I avoid my eyes as I unfold the tablet and login to the ITF system.

My profile pops up with the familiar file decorated the a "T".

I tap the folder, my fingers only shaking slightly.

The Test file opens and spreads across my screen. On the top right-hand corner is my score.

93%

Placement: Innercity.

The weight sitting on my chest lightens a little. Like it had done multiple times this week. A reminder that what Andrew had said in the Testing Room was ridiculous. How could a regular Test Distributor hack into the Test interface and change someone's score?

I let my breath escape a little and move to exit out of the app, but something catches my eye.

TEST ANSWERS.

My brow raises and tap the link. My answers to the Test questions climb on the screen. I skim the questions, some I recognize, some I don't. But recalling all the Test questions from a week ago is difficult. The only thing I can really remember was my light headedness and anxiety. It made the whole experience a blur.

I glance at the last question with my finger almost touching the exit link.

The Outercity has had a shortage of supplies this winter due to a bad harvest, but the Intercity has extra food in its warehouses. However, there is no guarantee that the next harvest will bring anymore crops, and the weather doesn't look promising. Should the Intercity:

A) Give the extra food to the people in the Outercity B) Save the extra food for next harvest

ANSWER: A

I stop.

I lean closer to my tablet and blink.

ANSWER: A

Tears blind me. The tablet falls from my hands, and I wrap my arms around myself because I knew who gave that answer.