The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Seven

"Do you ever think about relationships?" I ask later that night, after the lights have gone off, and Taffy and I are lying in our beds.

She rolls over above me, her mattress squeaking in a way that makes Boots prick up his little ears. "You mean, like romantic ones?"

"Yeah."

She's silent for the longest moment.

It occurs to me that Taffy might not the best person to ask. The scars from the fire that took her parents cover two thirds of her face and much of her body, and however cruel people are to me, they are much, much worse to Taffy. When she first arrived at the CC, the sight of her own reflection made her burst into tears, and she's woken up sobbing and screaming from nightmares more times than I can remember. It's why she's had to rely on sleeping pills in the past, and probably will again in the future. Like me, Taffy doesn't think that anyone will ever be able to see past her scars and love her for who she is.

"I don't know," she says at last.

Sex is permitted in the CC, although long-lasting relationships are not. Every Second is issued birth-control pills from the moment we hit puberty, but of course I've never made use of that, and neither has Taffy. Like me, she can't bear the humiliation of being rejected because of our scars.

I'm sure that some kids do carry out relationships in secret, but whether or not those survive beyond the walls of the CC is a mystery to me. It's not like anyone who leaves here ever comes back.

The things that Roan has said echo through my head.

"Did you ever like anyone on the outside?" I venture.

Taffy sighs a little. "I had the biggest crush on the lead actor in a TV show I used to watch, but never on anyone that I went to school with. I suppose I didn't have much chance; I was too young."

"What do you think relationships are like?"

"How would I know?" Her voice isn't angry, only sad.

"Sorry," I mumble.

"Why so curious, anyway?" she says.

I scramble for an answer. "I was just . . . thinking about the Trials and what might happen when we pass them."

"If we pass them."

"When," I firmly correct her.

She doesn't say anything to that.

"We don't know what will happen when we leave the CC. We don't know how our lives are going to change," I say, cautiously.

I can hear Taffy breathing; it sounds a little shaky.

"Caia . . . what do you think is going to happen? You think we'll pass the Trials and suddenly we'll get to be like everyone else on the outside? We'll get to have their kind of life?"

"No, but –"

"We're government property, and that isn't going to change. Trials or no Trials."

I fall silent.

Tension stretches in the room between us. I reach out a hand to Boots, curled up next to my pillow, and run my fingers along his soft fur.

"I'm sorry," Taffy says, her voice barely a whisper.

"It's okay, I wasn't thinking straight."

"I just don't see the point in imagining things that we can never have."

I don't know if she thinks that we could never find love because we're worthless Seconds, or because we're scarred, and I don't want to ask because her words have cut like a blade.