Middle Ground by Katie Kacvinsky Page B

with apprehension. “If I’m already being honest, I don’t need it,” I pointed out. “Besides, can’t the reader tell if I’m lying?”
    She nodded. “It can tell me if you’re lying, but unfortunately it can’t tell me what the truth is. A lot of students think if they cooperate, if they say what we want to hear, then we’ll let them go. But that’s not the way it works. This medicine helps us open up your mind so we can see everything inside. So we can help you.”
    She held out the drug, but I still didn’t take it. My mind was all I had left, the only weapon I had in here, which, I realized, was why they wanted it. My mind was the last weapon they needed to confiscate.
    “What if I refuse?” I asked.
    She raised her eyebrows. “It’s mandatory. You can take this willingly or we can administer the drug through a syringe, with force if necessary. Most people prefer this way to the needle.” She continued to hold out the compact and waited. “You can’t fight what’s inevitable, Maddie.”
    I grabbed the tablet and put it in my mouth and it dissolved quickly on my tongue. It fizzled and tasted like the cough medicine my mom gave me when I was little and had a cold. Dr. Stevenson closed the compact and slid it into her pocket.
    She smiled. “Now we can begin the session,” she told me.
    I nodded but my head felt heavy, like weights were inside it, pressing it down. The room was fuzzy and all the sharp angles turned soft. I looked up at the ceiling and tried to focus, but a foggy halo framed the lights above me. They dimmed, going from white to yellow to gold.
    “The Cure’s starting to work,” I heard her say, and her voice echoed against the walls.
    I started to fall forward but a hand guided me back, and then I was sinking.
    I closed my eyes and when I opened them I was sitting in a desk in an old-fashioned classroom. It was a face-to-face high school, like my mom used to describe, with desks aligned in rows, all facing the front of the room, where a middle-aged man in a dark beard and glasses was lecturing. He was animated and used his hands while he talked. A student sat in front of me, someone I didn’t recognize, and I watched the teacher’s lecture form paragraphs on his computer screen while he typed his own notes in the margins. It was archaic, like I’d time-traveled back thirty years.
    I looked to my side and froze. Justin was sitting at a desk in the next aisle. I glanced around and saw that Clare, Noah, Pat, Scott, and Molly were all in the room. I recognized Erin from soccer and some of my old digital contacts. I even recognized Jake and Riley, two of Justin’s friends I’d met back in Oregon. There was a poster on the wall of the periodic table and illustrations of how to identify types of plants and flowers. What was I doing in a science class? I studied Justin’s profile while he took notes. He wrote longhand, the way he preferred. He was the only one writing.
    I could feel the energy I always sensed in his presence but I still didn’t accept he was real. I reached out to touch his arm and felt his skin warm under mine. It was so natural to have my hand there. He looked at me and grinned.
    He leaned in close. “Stop staring at my lips,” he whispered.
    I could hear his shoe moving across the ground. I could feel his body heat. I was so relieved to see him I wanted to cry. I curled my fingers around his arm tight, until my knuckles raised out white through my skin.
    “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “Justin, what are we doing here?” I whispered. “Where are we?”
    His grin disappeared. “Are you all right?”
    That’s when the explosion hit. We felt it before we heard it, a shudder, like a tsunami had slammed against the walls of the school. Then the windows blew out from a gust so strong it ripped me out of my seat. My body was thrown forward and I felt a searing heat rip through my leg. I flew, pushed through the air in a wave of heat, until a concrete wall caught