Chapter 18: Wrong

The suffocating curtain that hung over the room was thicker than the humid air of the aeroponic farm. Jason stared warily at Doctor Sylvia, wondering what she would say.

She just smiled.

“I see. So you’ve been having those thoughts about your friend Moira, and not your Partner?”

He couldn’t believe she was so calm about this. What he’d admitted to was a violation of practically everything he’d learned in his Adult Education classes!

“Th-That’s… I just…”

“I’m not upset, Jason, I just want to know the truth,” Sylvia said. Her voice was gentle like his mother’s, but it seemed to lack that comforting edge that calmed him down.

“Have you been having these dreams about Moira? Holding her hand? Kissing her? Touching her in other places?”

“Yes!” Jason wailed, practically in tears. “I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help it! Whenever I see her, it’s like my heart drops into my stomach and I can’t control it! And these dreams, the things we do…”

His voice cracked. She took the opportunity to interject.

“Why do you say these feelings are wrong?”

“Because those are the rules! Sexual acts like holding hands and kissing are only meant to be performed with Partners!”

The doctor nodded, stroking her chin thoughtfully. “And doing those things with someone else would be against the rules, then…”

“Exactly!”

“And you’ve always followed the rules, is that right?” Her lips curled up into a smile that made Jason’s blood run cold.

No… No way. Does she know that Moira and I took her book?! Jason caught his breath, forcing himself to calm down. He was just overthinking things. She didn’t know, she couldn’t. If she did, they would already have gotten in trouble!

“Oh, it doesn’t have to be a big thing. Just a small rules violation, like sneaking an extra snack without asking, or playing somewhere you’re not supposed to, taking a classmate’s crayon without asking, something like that.”

Jason felt his throat close up on him as he tried to whimper out a response. The room was spinning around him.

“Th-That was…”

“A ‘youthful indiscretion’, that’s what people call it.” She didn’t seem mad, which helped calm him down a little.

“I just…”

“It’s okay. Everyone does it a little bit. I know. I’ve reviewed all your files. But as I was saying, even an exemplary boy like yourself has broken the rules every once and a while, isn’t that right?”

What was she saying? It was almost like she was telling him that it was okay to break the rules sometimes! But she was an adult! Adults were supposed to follow the rules completely!

“Let’s go back to that time you took the crayon. You were what, 8 at the time? Already old enough to know it was against the rules. But you did it anyway. Why?”

“I-I was drawing a picture of a forest… and my green had run out… I just needed a little bit more to finish, so I… so I took it.”

“And that was wrong?”

“Of course it was! Because stealing is bad!”

“What if you had asked for it first?”

“…Huh?”

She shrugged. “If you had asked for the crayon, and your friend had said yes, would it still be wrong to use the crayon, then?”

“…No, of course not.”

“Because you asked permission, right?”

The things she was saying were so obvious it confused him. Did she really think he didn’t know how the rules worked? Anybody in Primary Education would have known that!

“Let me put it another way. When you took the crayon, you were breaking the rules, right? ‘No stealing.’ That’s a big one.”

“Yeah.”

“But what about before that?”

“…Before?”

“Well, before you took the crayon, you had to think about taking the crayon, isn’t that right? You saw you needed more green, you saw your friend had green he wasn’t using, and you decided to take it. Were you still breaking the rules then?”

Jason didn’t know how to answer that. These were the kinds of questions Skye could handle, but not him. He didn’t know the finer points of the rules.

“How about this? If you thought about stealing the crayon, and then realized it was against the rules and asked for it instead, would you still be breaking the rules then?”

“…Well, no, because I asked for it.”

That answer got him a smile from the doctor. “Exactly. You thought about breaking the rules, and then you followed the rules instead. So you would say that you didn’t do something wrong, then?”

“I guess so…” He still didn’t know what the crayon had to do with any of this.

“So why is it so wrong for you to think about kissing your friend?”

Jason opened his mouth to answer but the words weren’t coming out. “Because… it’s against the rules?”

“Is it, though? The rules say that you can’t have inappropriate sexual contact with anyone besides your assigned Partner, and even then, only in private areas after passing the proper Intimacy Preparation assessments, correct?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“But there aren’t any rules that say you can’t think about doing those sorts of things with someone else,” she stated triumphantly. “It’s exactly like with the crayon. Even if you think about doing something against the rules, as long as you only do those things with your Partner, Skye, then you haven’t broken any rules, correct?”

Jason couldn’t find a fault in her reasoning. “So… it’s okay to think that way about Moira as long as I don’t do anything with her? It’s not… wrong?”

Her expression turned serious. “I can’t answer that question, Jason.”

He started to panic. “Wh-Why not?!”

“Because I’m not the one who can decide what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’,” she explained.

“…Oh, yeah.” He’d almost forgotten. “Only Ai can do that.”

When Doctor Sylvia heard that she made a complicated expression. It was almost like she was frustrated and exhausted at the same time, while also not being surprised, either. Jason didn’t quite know what to make of it.

“Let me ask you another question, Jason. Why is kissing Moira ‘wrong’?”

“Because it’s against the rules.”

“And if something is against the rules, then that means it’s wrong?”

The way she asked that made Jason worried she was trying to trick him. He was very cautious when he answered with his “…Yes?”

“Thank you. Now, I want you to do something for me, Jason. I want you to close your eyes.”

“Okay,” he nodded, following her instructions.

“Now imagine kissing Moira. I know you haven’t learned this in class yet, but think about that dream. When you were kissing her, the moment before it happened. Can you do that for me?”

Jason wasn’t sure if this was okay, but she was a doctor. She knew what she was doing, right? And like she said, just thinking about it wasn’t against the rules. So he tried to call back to that dream, picturing him and Moira staring across from each other, leaning in close, the heat of their breath against each other’s faces…

He felt his heart start to race. It was like he was back there again, feeling that warm and fuzzy feeling all over again, his stomach twisting itself in knots.

The doctor’s voice pierced through the fog of his imagination. “Now how are you feeling right now? How do you feel, wanting to kiss Moira? Good?”

It was wrong to want to kiss her, he knew that. But the more he pictured his dream, the more he wanted to do it anyway. The doctor was right, he felt better than he’d ever felt before.

Suddenly he felt a presence behind him. Doctor Sylvia’s breath was hot against his ear.

“Now imagine Moira wants to kiss you. How does that make you feel?”

His heart began to race. The thought that Moira wanted to kiss him as much as he wanted to kiss her, the thought that they both wanted the same thing, to share their warmth together, even though it was wrong, it made him…

“Ah!” His eyes snapped open and he caught his breath, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “S-Sorry, I just…”

“No, no, it’s fine,” the doctor assured him with a smile. She’d returned to her seat already.

Jason’s eyes shot down to his pants, and for a second he feared he’d made another mess. But no, there was nothing wrong down there. The only thing that felt wrong was his heart, and the way it felt was so… right.

“Tell me something, Jason, do you know what ‘love’ is?” Doctor Sylvia suddenly asked. “Not love between parent and child by the way, I mean romantic love.”

Finally, a question he could answer without feeling awkward! “Yeah, it’s what happens between two Partners. The feelings you have for your Partner is love.”

“Well, what about before the Bunker, then? On the old Earth? Do you think they didn’t have love back then?”

He shook his head. “No, of course they did. It just wasn’t as efficient now, since Ai wasn’t there to engage the Partner system.”

“I see. So why don’t you tell me how you feel about Skye? How does thinking about her make you feel?”

“…Why are we talking about Skye?” Jason didn’t see what any of this had to do with how he felt about Moira.

“Your problem right now is that you’re having thoughts about breaking the rules with Moira, right? So if we could shift those feelings from your friend to your Partner, then wouldn’t everything be fixed?”

Her tone sounded like she was joking again. But Jason agreed with her statement regardless. He nodded.

“Good. Now tell me about Skye.”

“She’s a very smart person. And very responsible as well. She always studies for class and practices the violin all the time, which must be really difficult. I think that’s really admirable, that she can do all that while still maintaining her grades. She doesn’t have very many friends, but she’s a very nice person once you get to know her.”

“I see, I see,” she nodded thoughtfully. “You know quite a lot about her, don’t you?”

Jason sat up a little proudly. “Well, of course, she is my Partner, after all.”

“Now how does that make you feel?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Well, you told me quite a lot about Skye, but not really how you feel about her. When you think about her, does she make your heart… what was it again? Drop into your stomach?”

“Not really, no.”

“Not like Moira.”

Jason shook his head again.

“Do you think Skye is pretty?” The doctor asked.

“Well, yeah, obviously. She’s very pretty.”

“So she’s smart, she’s pretty, you admire her quite a lot, do you have fun with her?”

“Yeah, of course, we hang out all the time.”

“Yes, but do you have fun hanging out with her?”

Jason shrugged. He wasn’t sure what the point of all these questions was. “Yeah, we have a good time together.”

“Who would you say is more fun to be with, Skye or Moira?”

He scowled. Why did she keep bringing up Moira? It just made him feel weird!

“It isn’t Skye, is it?” She wore a smile that told him she already knew the answer.

“I guess… Moira’s more fun…” he admitted. He couldn’t help it, there was just something about her that made him like his time with her more. But that didn’t mean he didn’t like Skye too!

“What if you could choose?” She asked suddenly. Her question was confusing, what was that supposed to mean?

“…Huh? Choose?”

“Imagine, just imagine, that you could choose who would be your Partner. Skye or Moira. Who would you choose?”

“Who would I… choose?” It wasn’t a question he’d ever thought about before, because there was no question at all. Nobody got to choose their Partner. Ai paired them with the perfect match, and for him, that was Skye. So why was she asking him who we could choose? Skye was his Partner, and Moira… Moira was…

“You said that love is the feeling you have for your Partner,” Doctor Sylvia said quietly. “But that’s not quite the truth. Love is wanting to kiss. It’s wanting to hold hands. It’s wanting to see the other person’s smile every moment of every day, to hold them close and be with them forever. That’s love, Jason. On old Earth, now, and in the future, that’s what ‘love’ is.”

Jason didn’t know how to feel. All those things she was describing, he didn’t feel like doing any of them with Skye. But Moira… he wanted that from Moira. It was all he could think about.

“Am I… in love with Moira?” He didn’t know if his question was meant for the doctor or for himself. Either way, he dreaded the answer.

But he never got one.

“I don’t know,” she said. “You’re the only one who can decide that.”