Oliver Rowe had faced plenty of difficult days in his life—, curfew sweeps, the constant threat of being written up for something as small as walking too fast past an officer—but none of those came close to the knot tightening in his stomach now.
His girlfriend was coming to see his home.
Not his street.
Not the shop downstairs.
His home.
For two days he scrubbed, cleaned, and disinfected every inch of the tiny apartment above Ms. Teresa's shop until his hands stung and his knuckles cracked. When he borrowed a bucket and some cleaners from her, she had lifted an eyebrow.
"Someone important coming,Mr. Rowe?"
He couldn't tell her the truth.
He could barely admit it to himself.
Kalani—the governor's daughter, a girl who lived in a building he could see glittering in the distance—was coming to see the place he'd spent his whole life trying to hide.
Even his grandfather thought it meant something else.
"You finally gettin' reviewed?" the old man asked, voice strained and papery from decades of hospital air.
"No, Grandpa," Oliver muttered while scrubbing the corner of the bathroom floor until his wrist ached. "Worse."
His grandfather snorted. "What's worse than the state judgin' ya?"
He didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
He picked Kalani up at the west gate of the Chicago Zone—Zone One, officially, just like all the others across the country, but the oldest, the original, the one politicians liked to pretend didn't exist.
Kalani looked radiant even in the dull light of the streetlamps, wearing a soft cream sweater and nice slacks that screamed not from here. When she saw him, she wrapped her arms around him in a hug that warmed him instantly.
"You're overdressed," he whispered into her hair.
She laughed softly. "I just wanted to look nice."
"For… this?" He gestured behind him—toward cracked pavement, flickering signage, and the steady shuffle of tired people heading home before curfew.
"For you," she corrected gently.
He didn't know what to say to that. So he held her hand. And he held it tighter as vendors approached—men and women his age or younger, trying to sell her toys, trinkets, scraps, things they'd found outside the Zone and polished into hopeful treasures.
"No thank you," she murmured each time, trying to be polite but visibly overwhelmed. Oliver guided her closer to him, shielding her body with his without making it obvious.
"You hungry?" he asked, hoping the answer would be no.
"I could eat."
Damn.
The bell above the door jingled softly as they entered the narrow little shop that served as restaurant, pharmacy, and general store. It smelled like broth simmering, old wood, and lemon cleaner—Miss Teresa's attempt at keeping the place respectable, even if "respectable" here was still considered grimy outside the walls.
"Evenin', young Mr. Rowe," Ms. Teresa called from behind the counter. Her steel-gray curls were tied up in a bun, her apron flour-dusted like always. "And who's this lovely thing?"
"My girlfriend," Oliver said before he could stop himself.
Kalani blushed.
Ms. Teresa's grin grew so wide it nearly split her face.
She ladled soup into two bowls and sliced fresh bread from a loaf she must have saved for the kids. When she handed them over, Kalani gave the bowl a hesitant sniff then set it down, untouched. Not because she was rude—Oliver could tell from the apologetic look in her eyes—but because she genuinely didn't know if she could trust it.
Then she watched Oliver dip his bread into the broth and take a long, satisfied bite.
Slowly, cautiously, she picked up her spoon and tasted. Her eyes flicked in surprise—it was good. Really good.
Miss Teresa beamed.
She didn't charge them, of course. She never did. When Oliver tried to offer a couple dollars, she shooed him away.
"I got enough rations from the state to feed half the block," she said. "I don't do this for money, sweetheart."
Kalani looked around at the shelves stacked with mismatched cans, dusty medicine boxes, and handmade goods. When a group of ten kids came barreling in, laughing and breathless, Miss Teresa prepared small paper sacks—one for each child.
"What's in those?" Kalani whispered.
"Soup packets. Fruit for two of 'em. And penicillin for that boy's mama," Miss Teresa answered simply. "Now go straight home!" she called to the children. "No tradin' on the streets! I see you with these in a deal, you ain't gettin' no more."
Kalani watched them leave, wide-eyed.
Penicillin.
Her mother called people like Miss Teresa "drug smugglers."
But nothing about the woman's hands, worn from feeding hungry children, looked criminal.
Was this what Zone One really was?
Was this what she'd never been shown?
When they headed for the stairs, Miss Teresa flashed her a warm smile.
Kalani froze.
She didn't smile back.
She didn't know how.
She was terrified.
The moment Kalani stepped into the apartment, Oliver wanted to disappear.
He watched her eyes take in the worn dining table he'd scrubbed until his wrists throbbed. The faint soap smell clung to everything. The apartment was clean—but it was also old. And small. And tired.
The the tabby cat he'd been feeding for years, trotted up with a questioning chirp.
"A cat?" Kalani asked, startled.
"Yeah," he said softly. "That's Red."
He led her down the short hallway to his tiny room. She sat on his bed—thin mattress, thrift blankets, lumpy pillows—and tried to smile like she wasn't horrified.
They studied.
They worked on the project.
She wrote almost everything—he wasn't allowed in most sections of the library.
He pretended not to see the way she absorbed every detail of his life, her expression sinking further and further.
At the bus stop outside the gates, she gave him a lingering hug and a soft kiss—rare for her in public. He held her tightly, trying to memorize the shape of her.
He wondered if this was the last time she'd hug him like this.
He wondered if this was the last time she'd see him.
When she boarded the bus, he had already braced himself for the inevitable.
On Monday Kehlani wasn't waiting at their spot outside the school.
She didn't eat breakfast with him.
She said nothing in class.
They turned in the first draft of their senior project—a tiny submission meant to prove they weren't using AI, which had been banned after the political riots and the assassination that caused the government's collapse a century ago.
In trigonometry, she sat beside him like always, but their silence was suffocating. Travis noticed. Everyone noticed.
After school, Oliver saw her talking quietly with Travis outside study hall. His chest tightened—not with jealousy, but fear.
He approached her carefully.
"You okay?" he asked.
Kalani's eyes were glossy. "Are you okay?"
He frowned. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because you live like that," she whispered. "No wonder that man escaped to be homeless. The streets are cleaner than your apartment."
He clenched his jaw.
"Can we not talk about how I live?"
"Why not?" she shot back. "It isn't fair to your people."
People were starting to stare.
Oliver grabbed her gently by the arm and led her out the side door, away from the hallways. They walked the first stretch of the route home in tense silence.
Then he stopped.
"You want the truth about Zone One?" he asked.
She nodded, trembling.
So he told her.
He told her everything.
About how the Zones were beautiful when they were first built, meant to be gardens—literal gardens—where broken communities could regrow after the president's assassination and the collapse of the old government.
How low-income neighborhoods were turned into Zones overnight.
How criminals were placed there after jail because no one else would hire them.
How the country outlawed homelessness, and anyone earning under $20,000 a year was absorbed into the Zone system.
How Zone One was never updated.
Not once.
Not in a hundred years.
How murder once ran rampant inside the walls—until the courts introduced new executions for crimes committed in-zone.
How safety was bought with fear.
How discrimination shifted from skin color to ZIP code—that a hundred years ago, they wouldn't have been allowed to date for other reasons entirely.
He met her eyes.
White and brown.
Green and caramel.
"I never knew any of that," Kalani whispered.
"You wanna know why?" Oliver asked bitterly. "Because your mother made sure you didn't."
She stepped into him, arms wrapping around him, head pressing against his shoulder.
"I still love you," she said, voice trembling. "Even if you never say it back. Even if you're scared to. I love you anyway."
Oliver closed his eyes.
Love had nothing to do with why he stayed with her.
He stayed with her because he was protecting her.
Protecting her from the truth of who she was—
a system baby—
and who he was—
a boy from Zone One.