The Sky is Everywhere

Chapter Nine

I tuck the flower in my pocket and keep it there for the rest of the day, as close to my skin as possible.

Throughout the training drills, throughout dinner, I'm only half in the CC. The other half of me is away with Roan, soaring through the sky and dancing in the sunlight.

Every now and then I slip a hand in my pocket and touch the flower, assuring myself that it's real.

I know enough about the outside that it's normal for people to give flowers as romantic gifts – is that what this is?

The books I've read talk about huge, expensive bouquets, but this tiny wildflower feels more precious than all the red roses in the world.

When dinner is over, I head upstairs and carefully pull the flower from my pocket. My heart sinks a bit. It's mostly crushed now, the small petals twisted and crumpled. I straighten them out as best I can, running my fingers along them the way Roan ran his fingers along the place on my neck where my tracker was implanted.

Despite my efforts, the flower is still crumpled, but I find I like it this way. Like me, it is imperfect.

I place it under my bed.

Then I get up and approach the mirror. I stare at my face.

My eyes are brown, like the hair that falls just past my shoulder-blades, and my skin is lightly tanned from all the time spent outdoors. My lips are cut through with scars but . . . isn't my mouth still a nice shape? Aren't my eyes a warm colour?

My scars are pinkish-white against my tan, but for the first time in my life, I don't feel the same sense of revulsion I normally do when I look at them. I look at them, and I keep looking. I've never stared at my own face for so long.

Am I really as ugly as I've always feared?

No, I don't think I am.

After the lights go out, when Taffy and I are in bed, I reach for my flower and plant the softest kiss on it, before putting it back under the bed.

Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to do that to Roan.

The next morning, my little flower is dead.

In the few moments before Taffy drags herself out of bed, I hold it in my palm, looking at its wilted petals, vibrant purple fading to brown, and I expect to feel disappointed, but I'm not. It would have been nice if the first flower anyone's ever given me had lasted longer, but the feeling it gave me will last. The meaning of it will last.

Roan gave me something beautiful, and even if the flower itself is dead, I'll hold the gesture in my heart, precious as a diamond.

At breakfast, Ripley gives us the usual speech, reminding us of our worthlessness, and as she speaks, a flame ignites in my chest, burning along my bones.

I've thought before about the injustice of us being punished for the choices our parents made, but it's never made me as furious as it's starting to now, especially in light of what I learned from Roan. The reality of so much of the country being okay with Seconds being owned as property and locked away in here, simply for the crime of being born, makes my heart feel dark and angry, and my blood boil.

Maybe Roan was right, and the parents who allow their Second children to be born and then imprisoned, aren't simply selfish, but that doesn't change the fact that we shouldn't be punished for it.