The Experiment by Cassidy Shay (top non fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

up the stairs. “These are the bedrooms for the kids. We’ve kept this one as a guest room.” She opens the other door.
“This was Janey’s room.” She leans against the door frame. “I miss her. Sometimes I come up here to let her know that dinner’s ready, or that we’re going to the store. When that happens, I just sit on the bed and cry.” She sighs.
“I wish I could be blissfully unaware of what goes on there. But Marc comes home and talks about his job. I know what goes on.” She blinks a few times.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Things are getting easier. We have windows now, and I managed to talk them into letting me out of there. As long as she doesn’t start talking about a revolution, she’ll be fine.” Since she’s so young, I imagine that she will manage to stay out of trouble. And by the time she’s old enough to start that kind of trouble, hopefully she won’t still be in that place. Hopefully, no one will.
I don’t hear marc’s footsteps as he comes up the stairs. But when he puts his hand on her shoulder, I see the love between these two. There is also a sadness there, one that is too heavy for such a young couple.
She looks back at him, then turns her body so that she can sink into his embrace. For a few moments, it is silent. Then Marc looks at me and pulls away from Annabel.
“Let’s go get some breakfast. There’s a lot that we gotta do, and not a whole lot of time.” We climb into the Academy’s car and head out into the city. They talk about where we should go, and I roll down the window and watch the city. The buildings gradually get shorter, until they only have about fifteen stories.
Even though I’ve never been here, I can tell where the restaurants are and which buildings are other things. Each floor has its own exterior decorations, with the name of the restaurant. Finally, we stop in front of one building and go up to the fifth floor.
When the elevator opens, I’m hit by the smell of… well, I don’t exactly know what it is. I’ve never had it before. But it smells wonderful. The colors of the restaurant are blues and reds, and it’s packed. Finally, we find a table and open the menu.
“Okay. You guys will have to tell me what’s good here. Because…” I look at the menu, “I don’t know what any of this is. Except for pancakes and scrambled eggs.”
“You definitely should get a waffle. It’s like a pancake, but ten billion times better.”
“But French toast is good too. And they don’t serve bacon at the Academy. So she has to get some of that.”
Annabel scrunches up her face. “No bacon” She looks at me, mock pity on her face. “I’m so sorry.” They go back and forth, and finally Marc stops and looks at me.
“We’ll just get you a little bit of everything. You can try it all and then take the rest of it back and share it with all of your friends. Sound good?”
I laugh. “Are you sure I won’t get jumped when everyone smells this delicious aroma?” I make my voice dramatic, putting extra emphasis on the last two words. Annabel laughs.
Marc’s face is completely serious when he speaks. “I make no promises. But it’s a chance that we’re going to have to take.”
About thirty minutes later, the waiter brings us our food. He brings Marc and Annabel’s out first, and then looks at me. “I’ll be right back with yours,” he growls.
It takes him five trips to bring me all my food. He brings me waffles, chocolate chip pancakes, French toast, crepes, omelets, bacon, sausage, chicken fried steak, hash browns, eggs cooked about five different ways, and other stuff that I don’t even remember the names of.
He had to bring a separate table just to fit everything. He gives me one last dirty look before going back to the kitchen. Annabel looks at me and says, “I think you made a new friend.”
There’s so much food that I don’t know where to start. After staring at it for a few seconds, I take a bite of a waffle. “Oh, this is so good.” I say. “I’m surprised that the government will allow you guys this much pleasure.”
“Well,” starts Marc, “they probably figured that if they took away our food, we’d have a revolution right away. You don’t get in between a man and his food.”
Next, I try the French toast. Then the eggs sunny-side up. The crepes and the chicken fried steak. I have a little bit of everything. And I love all of it.
“I don’t know how I went my whole life without having this stuff. It’s not right. Not right at all.” I shake my head in disappointment.
The waiter comes by again and asks if we will need some boxes to carry the leftovers. After he’s gone, I look at Annabel and Marc. “Does he expect us to carry it out in our hands?”
After breakfast, we go back to the house and put everything in the fridge. Then, we walk from the house into the business area of the town, and we go window shopping. There’s a small breeze blowing, moving my hair a little.
I look in all the windows of the shops and department stores, but we rarely actually go inside. I want to stay outside in the sunshine as much as I can. For a few hours, we just walk around the city, dodging people and having fun.
We talk the whole time, about life in and out of the Academy. I talk about my daughter, and Annabel talks about her family. Marc talks about training to be a Vipero, and they tell me how they met and got together. They tell me about their wedding day, how beautiful it was, and they described their close family and friends who watched the wedding.
I laughed when Annabel asked me about my wedding. “I shared my special day with eleven other couples. And I wasn’t marrying the man that I loved.” Her mouth makes an “O” shape, and she changes the subject. I smile at her in thanks. The last thing I need right now is to focus on all the people I do and don’t love.
At about one in the afternoon, my stomach starts to growl. At the same time, I smell something amazing. I walk towards the source of the smell, sniffing the air like a bloodhound on a trail. “What is that amazing smell?”
“Barbecue,” says Marc, taking in one long, deep breath. “You’re gonna have some ribs.”
He leads me into a building, and we wait for the waitress to seat us. She leads us to a booth in the corner, and we open our menus. When she comes back to take our order, Marc orders me the full rack of baby back ribs. They’re messy, and I get barbecue sauce all over my hands and face. I have a napkin around my neck so I don’t get anything on Annabel’s shirt. “These are delicious,”I say. “I’m in heaven.”
We box up my leftovers and then go back to house, where we stay for a while. “Where do you want to go next?” Annabel asks. We’re sitting on the couches in the living room.
“Can we just go for a walk? I want to take my shoes off and walk through the grass, feel the warm cement on the bottom of the feet. We don’t need to go out and do something special. I just want to be outside in the air.”
We walk through the neighborhoods. I walk in the grass and on the sidewalk, my shoes in my hand. Even though the air is cold, the sun has warmed the cement. Marc and Annabel walk behind me, holding hands. Several times, I wish that I had someone to hold my hand. I don’t say anything, though.
Thinking about that, I start thinking about Collin. We pass a flower garden, and I bend down to study the flowers. “So, Annabel, have you seen Collin lately?” I try to sound like I’m just making conversation, but I know I don’t succeed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her glance at Marc, worried. “Um… yeah. Actually, I just saw him last week. It was his daughter’s birthday.”
“How is he?” I’m still close to the ground, studying the flowers. I don’t really want to know. If he’s sad, it will break my heart. But it will also break my heart if he’s happy with someone else.
“He’s… he’s good. He’s happy. But since Marc’s last visit, he’s been different. He’ll call me at strange hours, and he’ll go on and on about you. He keeps asking me if Marc has said anything else about you. I tell him that I’ll call him if I hear anything.” She looks back at Marc, like she doesn’t know if she should go on. “But he’s doing alright. He loves those kids, and they couldn’t ask for a better father.” I get up then, and we continue walking.
We just walk through the neighborhoods, stopping to watch the occasional lizard scurry across the sidewalk. I study the flowers, and I marvel at the way the grass feels on my bare feet.
We walk until it starts to get dark, then take a short cut to the house. When we get inside, we watch TV for a while. There aren’t any new shows since the New World was created, so they’re all reruns of shows I’ve seen in Memories.
It’s the first time that I’ve watched TV in a long time. There’s a TV in the rec room, but I rarely go in there anymore.
After a couple hours, I go to bed. I usually don’t do much walking, so after today, I’m pretty worn out. But it still takes me a long time to get to sleep.
This is the first night that I’ve been away from Belle. There have been nights where she spent the night with Julie and Aron, but we were still in the same building. Now, we’re completely separated.
After a while, I hear thunder. Outside my window, I see lightening. I can hear the pitter-patter of rain on the roof. A storm this time of the year is strange. It’s late November, and the storms really only come in the summer.
But I’m glad that it’s raining tonight.
I have my jumpsuit on, and I quietly get out of bed. I don’t put shows on, and I quietly open the front door and step out into the rain.
The sleeve of my jumpsuit covers the bracelet on my wrist, so I don’t worry about it getting wet. I tip my head back and swallow the rain, feel it on my skin. In mere seconds, my hair is plastered to my head, my clothes are clinging to my body.
The water runs down my neck, drips down my nose. If I keep my eyes open for half a second, they are flooded with rainwater. The grass under my feet is mushy as the soil soaks up all the rain.
After a while, I feel like someone is standing next to me. Lightning flashes and I see Annabel there. I jump, almost fall over because of how startled I am. I wonder how long she’s been out here with me.
“What are you doing out here?” I ask through the rain.
“The neighbor called and said I have some crazy pregnant…” A clap of