Chosen

Chapter 26

The rest of the week passes by in a blur. I visit Milo every day, sometimes with Jay, sometimes by myself. He cracks jokes and sounds cheerful, but I can tell he's struggling to come to grips with his new reality, which consists of him being in a wheelchair for the near future, possibly for the rest of his life. He thanks me profusely each time I visit, which has frankly been embarrassing and unnecessary from the beginning.

West and I haven't had a chance to be alone since his office directly after the incident, and I'm really starting to miss him. True, we see each other at meals and when I stop by the infirmary, but I really need to talk to him, especially with time ticking away.

I only have one more week to give a name to my father.

Even though there are perceptible changes in the way people are acting around another, especially me, I would be a fool to think that Crane intends to abandon his asinine plan. If anything, I'm sure he'll cling to it more than ever as the way to get everyone back in line. What better way to prove you're doing the right thing than to have the number one person that could challenge it fall in step with a smile on her face?

At least I get to see West tonight; we planned to meet in the original cave-in site after curfew. I'm hoping I can use the time to figure out if we could be the real, forever thing. If everything goes well, maybe I'll even be able to talk to him about it tonight.

But I can't commit to West if he can't share what he's hiding, and that scares me more than anything else. I hate myself for having to give him an ultimatum, but I don't have the time to wait for him to open up to me. I only have seven days. Damn my father and his stupid edict.

I lay down on my bed, counting the minutes until curfew. I find myself focusing alternately on the ceiling tiles, then the cracks in them. It reminds me of Crane's regime and, in a way, Crane himself. Seemingly orderly and regimented, but with cracks betraying its weaknesses. 

I wonder how much pressure it would take to send it tumbling down.

I sit upright. How can I be thinking this? Sending the community into chaos is the last thing we need. There's no way we could survive it, without all the crucial work getting done. But at the same time, there has to be a way to introduce some flexibility, some freedom. Forcing people to be together when they don't want to is too far. Jay used to joke about how there was only so much people could stand. Now it seems like there may be some truth to those words.

If I really think about it, it wasn't the cave-in that started the shift, although that did seem to make it more noticeable. I can trace it back to at least the choosing, where I took my first step towards my own freedom. Maybe it the very public results of my life-altering choice that got people thinking about what they wanted out of their own lives. Maybe they saw through Crane's bullshit after all, and suspect that I wasn't swept aside in favor of Celia, but rather chose to abdicate. 

The clock on the wall beeps, the signal for five minutes to curfew. Perfect; only twenty more minutes until I go meet West. I walk to my mirror to prepare. Tonight has to go well. I don't know what I'll do if it doesn't.

- - - - -

When I get to our place, West isn't there yet. I settle in on the blanket to wait, twisting my flashlight to the low setting to preserve its battery a little. It's still too nerve-wracking for me to sit here in complete darkness. It reminds me of my first time down here, when I was running from Crane's thugs.

Looking around, I notice the journal lying off to the side. Usually it's closed, a frayed length of cord binding it shut, but tonight the cord is tucked between the pages near the middle like a bookmark. I look around and turn my ear towards the entrances to the little cavern room. Not a sound, not the faintest trace of footsteps. Before I know what I'm doing, the book is in my lap, open to the place marked by the cord, flashlight ready.