The Price of Perfection

By Naomi Nembhard

In future New York City, Luna Ross, a young and curious girl, has begun to notice some strange things about a friend who recently returned from her stay at the ominous Reform Center-a dark and curiosity-provoking building that tends to return visitors quite a bit different than how they began.

Everyone knows that the Reform Program is responsible for all of the fitness-oriented changes in society, including the strict meal plans and schools pushing academics to the side to allow for a more intense focus on physical activity. But does the Reform Center focus more on the images of perfection and beauty than health?

Luna cannot stop herself from wanting the truth. So, allowing her curiosity to have full reign, she creates a plan to uncover the scary secrets behind the Reform Program, even if doing so might uncover some uncomfortable truths about herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483569390

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Goodbyes

It was the second day of Spring. Luna Ross was awake before her alarm. The sun had not yet risen over the horizon. Not a single light was on throughout the town. It was peaceful, beautiful and silent. Luna stood in front of her bedroom window, looking out at all the stillness. Then, the short hand on the clock flicked to the six, and the rest of the town awoke.

Ashton Price arrived at the walkway in front of Luna’s house at the same time as he usually did. But Luna was not jogging toward him. Ashton rocked back and forth from his toes to his heels in his new running shoes. He had never had to wait for his girlfriend before. He hardly knew what to do with himself.

He watched a leaf blow by his feet, damp from the night’s rainfall. His eyes shot to the door when he heard it creak open and slam shut. Luna appeared, jogging up the slight incline with a smile on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Are you okay? Ashton inquired, his own smile slipping away.

Definitely, Luna chirped. Mom just wanted to tell me something.

She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to think about what her mother wanted to say. Luna just wanted to run until she couldn’t remember anything.

Running could do that, she had discovered. Running could make you forget who you were. It could make you anybody you wanted. And right then, more than anything, she desperately wanted to be someone else.

Ashton wasn’t convinced. He saw the corners of her mouth turn down ever so slightly.

Luna took off in a run, knowing Ashton would follow. She couldn’t wait to lose herself in the pounding of her feet as she ran as fast as she could.

Luna and Ashton ran across the bridge that arched over the old train tracks. Not many elements were left from when New York was polluted and overpopulated, but the tracks were one of them. Luna thought about what they were taught as children as her feet flew over the hard metal—that their city, New York, used to be one of the most populated areas in America. It was so crowded that people used all different kinds of motorized transportation. Motorcycles, buses, trains, subways, cars. It was hard for Luna to imagine doing all that sitting to go a few miles when she had walked, ran, or biked everywhere her whole life.

The people of New York eventually had to evacuate the city because they had polluted the air too much. They moved to different places where the air was better, but, as her tutor had told her, humans had a way of destroying Earth wherever they went.

* * *

Ashton was worried about Luna. He wanted to demand answers, to find out what was bothering her. He knew from experience that he would probably just end up no better off than he started—with no answers and probably buried by her killer glare, so he sat contemplating his next move.

Ashton watched Luna’s curly black hair swish back and forth as the pair ran over the bridge. It started to rain, but as he reached the end of the bridge, Ashton could still make out the Reform Building, towering over them through the haze.

He remembered when a few weeks after his little sister, Isabella, finally came home, his mother got a call from the Center. They said that they had been informed of Isabella’s asthma. When she was older, The Reform Program would have to take her in.

Ashton didn’t want his sister in such a dark and ominous place. Especially without him there to protect her. He didn’t like to think about anyone taking his baby sister away. He had waited for almost a year from when his parents told him he was getting a sibling, to when he finally got to meet her.

The other boys at school always complained about their little sisters and brothers whining and crying, but when Ashton met Isabella, he found that she was the most beautiful thing he had every seen or held or listened to. When she was struggling to breathe at night, he would sit by her crib and hold her tiny hand through the railing.

Isabella was eleven now, old enough that she could speak up when she couldn’t breathe. Ashton was always there for her. He didn’t mind at all. Isabella seemed content with whatever life chose for her. She accepted her asthma as a way for her to think about her breathing. She didn’t see it as an issue, a problem to be fixed. Neither did Ashton.

* * *

Nadia and Dennis Ross, Luna’s parents, were already in the kitchen when Luna and Ashton returned from their run. Colton, Luna’s brother, was sitting at the kitchen counter, eating his breakfast. He glanced up and returned his gaze to his phone when he saw who was coming through the door.

Ever since Ashton and Luna started hanging out, going on their runs together, and finally dating, Colton had drifted away. He and Luna used to do everything together, and they were much closer than most siblings. Luna was positive that she didn’t exclude or ignore him; she always invited him, with or without her boyfriend. He nearly always declined.

Colton clearly didn’t approve of Ashton, but Luna had decided long ago that she wasn’t going to break up with her boyfriend just because her brother had an issue with him. Luna loved her brother and trusted his judgement with all of her heart. But not always his protectiveness.

Colton had never taken the time to get to know Ashton.

Ashton, who came over for breakfast nearly every morning, made his way to the guest bedroom to shower and get ready for school. Luna’s family, excluding Colton, was fine with Ashton’s regular presence, so he spent as much time with Luna as he could.

As Luna made her way into her own room, she quickly weighed herself on the scale in her bathroom. The data was sent to the chart on her phone, along with the information from her run. Satisfied, Luna hopped under the stream of hot water and felt her muscles relax.

She wanted to talk to someone about what her mother said. Actually, she wanted to talk to her mother about what her mother said, but that would involve talking to her mother…

Thinking about the conversation, Luna felt goosebumps on her skin despite the heat coming from the shower.

Honey, I want to talk to you. I know you have to meet Ashton, but I just, well, I was looking for the cat, and she ran into your closet. I found something…

Luna most definitely did not want to talk about it. So she had darted around her mother and ran out the door without saying goodbye.

Luna hated not saying goodbye. Ever since she could remember, she would make sure to tell the people she loved goodbye, and that she loved them, and to have a good day, because she was always afraid that it would be the last time she would see them.

The idea she feared most was that someone she loved would die and the last thing she would have said to them was mean or uncaring. Or nothing.

So, when Luna went back downstairs for breakfast after her shower, she made sure to hug her mother and father and wave goodbye to Colton. She was relieved to know that she wasn’t leaving on a bad note.

She liked goodbyes. Goodbyes felt right and complete, like closure. Something she could live with.

Recognition

Have I ever told you that I have absolutely no arm strength? Luna was complaining to her friend, Leona, after her weight class.

Yes, pretty much every single day, Leona replied mockingly.

The girls’ banter continued all the way down the hallway as they walked to the break hall together.

The pair had been friends since second grade. They hadn’t known each other well until the start of their swimming unit. It was picture day, and the adults in the school didn’t seem to see the importance of a good hair day for pictures.

Luna and Leona went to the swim instructor and informed him, rather confidently, that the last time they had tried to swim, they had drowned. The instructor had chuckled at them. If they had drowned, he had said, they would be dead. They would just have to wear life vests if they couldn’t swim.

To any other seven-year-olds, the argument would have been lost. However…

Well, my mommy told me that if I don’t feel good about doing something, I shouldn’t do it. I don’t feel good about swimming today. Luna told him in a matter-of-fact tone.

Leona added in, "And my mommy says never to let a man tell me what to do."

The two got out of swimming for that day and had the best hair in the class picture. However, they weren’t allowed in the deep end of the pool for the rest of the unit, and had to do the best they could to stay entertained in the two-foot section.

They stayed quite close friends after that.

* * *

It was too loud in the break hall to do the homework neither of the girls had finished, so they headed outside to try to find some quiet.

Under the shade of their favorite tree, Luna and Leona finished their muscle worksheet. Like always, Luna did the top half of the muscles and Leona did the bottom and then they copied the other’s answers.

Luna immensely appreciated the perks of close friends at times like those. Once their homework was completed, the girls talked until the bell rang. The great thing about knowing someone so well was they could tell when something was bothering the other, and when not to talk about it. Leona managed to avoid any subjects that might upset her friend, loosening the knot of dread in her friend’s stomach, if only for a moment.

* * *

Oh, come on! In what universe does that count as a sit-up? Leona taunted Luna. She was supposed to be cheering her on and making her want to