Matched Read Free

open it right away. I don’t blame her. Inside the box is a microcard with background information about her Match. We all receive them. Later, the boxes will be used to hold the rings for the Marriage Contract.
    The screen flashes back to the default picture: a boy and a girl, smiling at each other, with glimmering lights and a white-coated Official in the background. Although the Society times the Matching to be as efficient as possible, there are still moments when the screen goes back to this picture, which means that we all wait while something happens somewhere else. It’s so complicated—the Matching—and I am again reminded of the intricate steps of the dances they used to do long ago. This dance, however, is one that the Society alone can choreograph now.
    The picture shimmers away.
    The announcer calls another name; another girl stands up.
    Soon, more and more people at the Banquet have little silver boxes. Some people set them on the white tablecloths in front of them, but most hold the boxes carefully, unwilling to let their futures out of their hands so soon after receiving them.
    I don’t see any other girls wearing the green dress. I don’t mind. I like the idea that, for one night, I don’t look like everyone else.
    I wait, holding my compact in one hand and my mother’s hand in the other. Her palm feels sweaty. For the first time, I realize that she and my father are nervous, too.
    “Cassia Maria Reyes.”
    It is my turn.
    I stand up, letting go of my mother’s hand, and turn toward the screen. I feel my heart pounding and I am tempted to twist my hands the way Lea did, but I hold perfectly still with my chin up and my eyes on the screen. I watch and wait, determined that the girl my Match will see on the screen in his City Hall somewhere out there in Society will be poised and calm and lovely, the very best image of Cassia Maria Reyes that I can present.
    But nothing happens.
    I stand and look at the screen, and, as the seconds go by, it is all I can do to stay still, all I can do to keep smiling. Whispers start around me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mother move her hand as if to take mine again, but then she pulls it back.
    A girl in a green dress stands waiting, her heart pounding. Me.
    The screen is dark, and it stays dark.
    That can only mean one thing.

CHAPTER 2
    T he whispers rise soft around me like birds beating their wings under the dome of City Hall. “Your Match is here this evening,” the hostess says, smiling. The people around me smile as well, and their murmurs become louder. Our Society is so vast, our Cities so many, that the odds of your perfect Match being someone in your own City are minuscule. It’s been many years since such a thing happened here.
    These thoughts tumble in my mind, and I close my eyes briefly as I realize what this means, not in abstract, but for me, the girl in the green dress. I might know my Match. He might be someone who goes to the same Second School that I do, someone I see every day, someone—
    “Xander Thomas Carrow.”
    At his table, Xander stands up. A sea of watching faces and white tablecloths, of glinting crystal glasses and shining silver boxes stretches between us.
    I can’t believe it.
    This is a dream. People turn their eyes on me and on the handsome boy in the dark suit and blue cravat. It doesn’t feel real until Xander smiles at me. I think, I know that smile , and suddenly I’m smiling, too, and the rush of applause and smell of the lilies fully convince me that this is actually happening. Dreams don’t smell or sound as strong as this. I break protocol a bit to give Xander a tiny wave, and his smile widens.
    The hostess says, “You may take your seats.” She sounds glad that we are so happy; of course, we should be. We are each other’s best Match, after all.
    When she brings me the silver box, I hold it carefully. But I already know much of what is inside. Not only do Xander and I go to the same school, we also live