Life Before Legend: Stories of the Criminal and the Prodigy Read Free

would be soft. A tingly feeling shoots down
     my spine.
What should I do? Should I move? Eyes open or closed?
For a while, I just stay completely still and keep my lips frozen.
Maybe I’m supposed to follow her lead.
So I try that instead. Gradually, I start kissing her back. It doesn’t seem so hard
     after a while . . . I even relax into it, letting my mind wrap around the fact that
     I’m lip-locked with an older girl. My hands are numb. I can’t feel my legs.
    She pulls away. Although she doesn’t take her hand off my arm, her grip is less ironclad.
     I’m still trying to catch my breath. “Not
too
bad for your first try,” she says cheerfully. Her nose brushes against mine. “Are
     you trembling?”
    I cringe. I’d hoped she wouldn’t notice.
    To my relief, she laughs before I can say anything embarrassing. “Boy, you are just
     cute as a goddy button.” She taps my nose and leans away from me. “All right, we got
     a deal. Back to the pier. If you behave yourself the whole time, I might even give
     you another kiss.”
    For the next three days, I work alongside her on her father’s Republic-assigned boat.
     Her name is Charlie, I learn, and she just turned sixteen. She tells me about her
     life working the piers as we load and unload shipments from dawn until dusk. Her mother
     had died a few years ago in a factory accident. She has a sister who actually got
     a Trial score high enough to get her assigned to a college. She loves the lake area,
     even if it means she smells like the ocean all the time. She’s happy that the Republic
     at least assigned her to work the piers with her father, instead of sending her off
     to the warfront to clean up after the troops. I don’t bother telling her that that’s
     what
my
father does—
did,
I mean—before he stopped coming home. My hands get splinters from dragging crates
     back and forth, and by the second day, my back feels like it’s going to break into
     pieces. Charlie’s dad—an enormous, bearded, pale-skinned man—ignores me completely,
     although sometimes he’ll nod in approval if I’m working really hard.
    I like the job. The girl gives me two cans a day instead of just one, which means
     every day I get to eat a can as well as save one for future meals. I also get a chance
     to stash trinkets that might be useful later on—sharp splinters of wood I could use
     as weapons, a couple of abandoned burlap sacks, a round tin good for carrying water.
    Charlie catches me as I walk along the pier, snatching up stray nails and stuffing
     them in my pockets.
    “What are you doing, preparing for battle?” she asks with a grin.
    I shrug. “I haven’t survived this long without some self-defense.”
    Charlie laughs, but she lets me carry on.
    In the evenings she sits with me while her father’s crew gathers farther down the
     pier. I watch, with a little jealousy, the way she flirts with the workers whenever
     her dad’s not around. She was right about one thing—she’s their darling, and if she
     ever told them to throw me overboard, they’d probably do it without hesitating. Slowly
     I grow used to the sound of the lake lapping against cement pillars and the unusual
     comfort of sleeping out in the open, knowing that in the morning I’d have a can of
     food waiting for me. What a luxury. Sometimes I’ll glance over at Charlie when she’s
     not looking, and I’ll try to replay our kiss in my head. I wonder if it meant anything
     to her. And whether or not she was serious about giving me another.
    On our last night together, Charlie leans back and regards me over the glow of our
     dim lamp. We’re sitting together at the far end of the pier, watching the skyscrapers
     of downtown light up one by one. Pretty nice evening. Even the humidity doesn’t seem
     as bad as usual, and now and then I can feel a cool breeze.
    “So, you paid off your debt. What are you going to do tomorrow?” she asks me.
    I shrug. “Don’t know yet. I usually