The Immortals by Mary Hallberg (chrysanthemum read aloud txt) 📗

was no intro, no blatant notes that gave away exactly what she was doing. But I didn’t expect that. Instead, the first page had ‘Matt Cavanagh’ at the top, along with what looked like an online article:

At just 15, Matt Cavanagh is already the crush of choice for millions of girls, Immortal and otherwise. But the New Jersey native’s rise to fame hasn’t always been smooth sailing.

When asked why his highly publicized relationship with fellow Immortal Jacey Smith fizzled, Matt became hesitant to reveal details. Instead, he only said: “Jacey and I…we had our differences. We had different priorities, and wanted different things, out of both life and relationships.”

But when Jacey was pressed on the issue, her response was a bit more blunt: “He wanted to study and get good grades and stay out of trouble, and I just wanted to party.”

Matt’s section ended there, and I wasn’t surprised at how tame it was. Yeah, it was probably uncomfortable for him to be asked those questions. But it was probably nothing compared to the what I imagined the rest to be.

The next section was Jacey’s and, as it turns out, I was right.

Not one to let her presence go unknown, 16-year-old Jacey Smith is an Immortal shrouded in mystery. Raised in the city that used to be Toronto, Jacey’s family was hit hard by the collapse when her father lost his job.

“My dad worked at this place called the Rogers Centre,” Jacey said. “They mostly held sports events, but after the collapse, people couldn’t afford to go to stuff like that. So the place shut down. After that…well, everything pretty much went to hell. My dad eventually left, and we already didn’t have much money before.. It was just me and mom, and she had to get a job, which she hadn’t done in forever. She always tried to hide stuff from me so I wouldn’t know how bad it was. But I’m not stupid.”

But things started looking up for Jacey at age 15, when her childhood friend Elizabeth Brogan joined the Immortals. Though Jacey easily could have asked her friend for financial assistance, she was hesitant. “I don’t like asking for help, you know? And I didn’t want her to think I was just using her.”

Imagine Jacey’s shock when Elizabeth approached her asking for money. “She said she didn’t have a lot saved up yet, and she had a big expense. I didn’t have a lot either, but of course I wanted to help my friend. So we pooled our money, and she said it was enough. After that, she petitioned the panel, and I was Immortal in a month.”

But when it comes to just what Elizabeth’s big expense was, Jacey remains tight lipped. “If she wants to tell you, she will,” Jacey says. “But I don’t know if I want to. I will tell you this, though — we shouldn’t have done it. Everyone around us thought it was the right thing to do. But I think we both knew from the beginning that it wasn’t what she wanted. It never should have happened. it’s not that I’m not grateful I got in…I just wish it had been in a different way.”

No surprise there. Jacey was just as reluctant to share things with Corrina as she was with me. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was the most forthcoming of them all.

For Elizabeth Brogan, early life was not easy. The youngest of four children, Elizabeth grew up outside Rochester in a two bedroom home. She recalls often going to bed hungry.

But things started looking up for Elizabeth at the mere age of 14, when a panel member spotted her on the curb outside her neighborhood. She had just asked and been rejected for food, having been without for the entire day. This panel member was headed home from work to dinner at his own house, to which Elizabeth was, of course, invited. By the end of the night, the panel had already received her petition to join, and she was officially accepted the following week.

But life in the Necropolis wasn’t easy either. Under mounting pressure, both from her parents, who now expected her to support them, and her peers, most of whom were much older, Elizabeth replaced TNV with alcohol as her drug of choice.

But it wasn’t long before all the partying caught up with her. Just a few months after arriving in the Necropolis, Elizabeth discovered she was pregnant.

“I was scared, of course,” she says. “But I was also kind of excited. I think I was the only one. I know I could have raised the baby, even by myself. But my parents…all my siblings have had kids when they were teenagers, and they’d hoped that wouldn't happen to me. The father…well, he bailed pretty quickly. I didn’t have a lot of money saved up yet. So i decided not to have the baby. But the problem is, I didn’t even have enough money to…you know, take care of it. So I talked to Jacey. We’d been friends when she lived in Rochester when we were kids, and she was visiting Rochester for awhile. She was the only person I stayed friends with after I moved here, even though it was hard to talk to her. not because I thought I was too good for them or anything, but because she was the only one who hadn’t asked me for money.” She pauses to chuckle. “And now I was the one asking her for money. And she didn’t have a lot either, but between the two of us, we managed and…that’s how she got in.”

“I’m so grateful to her for being the only one to pull through for me. But I think both of us wonder if we did the right thing. I know I do.”

The story ended there, with no additional commentary from Corrina. I felt tears brimming in my eyes, already threatening to spill over. Suddenly everything Elizabeth and I had talked about,