Life Designed (Life Plan Series Book 1), Eliza Taye [great novels .TXT] 📗

Opal pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut tight. “This still doesn’t make any sense. I could see why Mrs. Steinworth was so shocked at the podium. She must have been as confused as the rest of us.”

“Well, based on the reception after she read the words to the audience, I would say I’d stunned the whole city. Word on the street here in the Undecided sector is that everyone here hates me. I’ve tried to keep my head down, especially after being talked down to by a little kid this morning.”

Opal started, coming out of her inner thoughts. “Was he a little boy with blond hair?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

Rolling her eyes, Opal explained, “He’s the one who showed me where you live. Charged me ten trecins for it.”

Garrett almost laughed. He wouldn’t have put it beyond the kid to have done that. “I’m sure he did. I had a kid charge me for information when I first came here, too. It must be a thing.”

“Wait, what do you mean when you first came here? You mean you’ve been here before yesterday?”

Garrett froze, not realizing he’d just revealed his secret forays into the Undecided sector to Opal.

“Garrett,” pressed Opal.

“I came here when I was first trying to research The Council. I thought they’d have old books of information that our library didn’t. That’s how I met April.”

“Oh, so she works at the library?”

“Yes, she does,” admitted Garrett.

“How often had you visited her? You two seem to be getting close.”

Garrett studied Opal’s face, trying to discern whether she could tell he liked April or not. After the whole incident with Miranda, he guessed she wouldn’t be too keen on him falling for someone again. She always said he was attracted to clingy girls he’d soon tire of, which only caused trouble for both him and the girl. “She’s helped me out a lot. She’s the only one in this entire sector who doesn’t hate me.”

“Do they really hate you, Garrett?”

Garrett harrumphed. “Wouldn’t you hate someone who had the potential to be whoever they wanted to be and then chose not to? Especially if you’d lost that chance?”

Opal stared down at the table and muttered, “Yeah, I guess I would.”

“See.” Garrett looked out the tiny window above his dresser, not wanting to look at Opal.

After allowing several seconds of silence to pass between them, Opal asked, “So what was your first day like?”

A darkness passed over Garrett’s eyes as he remembered his first day as an Undecided. “It was harsh, Opal. I had no idea the misery the Undecided live in.”

Opal nodded solemnly. “I’ve been coming here routinely for the past three years and even I didn’t know it was this bad. I had never entered anyone’s home before. Other than what I’d seen on the way to the shelter, I haven’t been exposed to this much of the Undecided sector before. It’s…”

“Grim,” interjected Garrett.

“Yes, I’d have to agree.” Opal raised her head to look at Garrett. “Do you wish you could take it back? Redo yesterday?”

Garrett gulped, staring down at his hands in his lap, then glancing up to meet Opal’s wondering eyes. “Yes…I wish I could, but the problem is, I don’t know what I would have done differently. That’s what scares me. I still wouldn’t have known what to write in my Life Plan.” With a puff of fake laughter, he added, “I guess that’s why they call us the Undecided.”

Opal sighed and then stood to walk over to sit next to Garrett on his bed. It sank and groaned as her weight added to his. “All right. Spill it all out. It’s no one else but us here.”

The corner of Garrett’s mouth drew into a weak smile as he recounted his day. “I couldn’t get any sleep last night because of how loud my neighbors are and the creaking of this building every time someone breathes, let alone moves. They assigned me to my first job of the day two hours before I needed to be there. I had to walk all the way from here to the Decided sector entrance and then after that, I had to pay 15 trecins just to take a transporter to the job location.”

“First job? I thought Undecideds were given one job for the entire day.”

Garrett shook his head. “No, they are assigned jobs for a specific period of time and if they don’t do the job well enough, they only receive half pay.”

Opal’s eyebrows raised and her eyes went wide. “Half pay?”

“Yes, and it gets worse. They only pay three to five trecins per hour which means you can’t afford to take the transporter every single day or even between jobs. You could run out of money before the day is up. We do get paid every day, which is nice, but I see that it’s necessary because if we don’t, we can’t eat, ride the transporters or pay for anything else.”

“Woah.” Opal waited expectantly for Garrett to finish his tale.

As he spoke, Garrett rambled off in a torrent about what his day was like in detail. The more he described it, the more animated he became, throwing in how much injustice the Undecided faced on a daily basis and how every day of their existence was a dreary drag on for life. Opal listened with increasing interest, shocked at how much she didn’t know about the Undecideds.

“And worst of all, we never get a day off. We work every single day and it’s at least ten hours a day.” As Garrett had become animated with his speech, he’d stood and started pacing, but now he fell back down onto the bed, exhausted. “I just don’t know how they do it, Opal. I don’t think I can