Breaking Point (Article 5 #2)(9)

And just like that it was over.

It shocked me, the elation over the sniper and the assassination attempt on the Chief of Reformation, but more the way everyone returned to business as usual, as if someone had pressed the off button. That they weren’t thinking, as I was, of reinforcing our security, or avoiding the Square or anywhere crowded with soldiers.

They moved on. Maybe that was how they survived this life.

Wallace announced dinner and the others dispersed, leaving the radio room empty but for Chase and me. He leaned against the outer wall, looking distracted, and as I settled beside him I became aware that we hadn’t been alone together for some time. As the new guy, he was often assigned the late shift securing the perimeter. Technically, we shared a room, but that didn’t mean we saw much of each other.

Now that the others were gone, his guard lowered, and he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, the exhaustion from his double shift breaking through. But something else was bothering him, I could tell.

“What is it?” I asked.

His eyes rested for a moment on my collarbone, and I realized the men’s shirt I wore had slouched down to reveal the top of my shoulder. I righted it slowly, and he blinked and glanced away.

“Probably nothing, it’s just…” He shrugged. “When I was fighting at the base in Chicago, there was this medic. An old guy, officer age. They’d send me to see him if I got knocked around too much, and he’d always hold up three fingers and say, ‘How many fingers do you see?’ I told him once it didn’t work if he always held up the same number, and he said, ‘Three’s the only number you need to remember, sergeant.’ I figured he was crazier than me.”

Chase had only once spoken to me about when the officers had made him fight at the base, and even then he’d told the story from another’s perspective. I knew his time in the FBR was something he wanted to forget, especially his stretch at the Chicago base, so I’d never pushed him. I’d always figured if he wanted to tell me, he would.

Now my curiosity was piqued. Could the resistance have infiltrated the MM? If so, we’d have access to FBR plans, strategies, supply shipments.… It seemed too much to hope for.

“What happened to the medic?” I asked.

“I don’t know. They stopped the fights after I”—he stretched his shoulders back, as though his chest had suddenly constricted—“after I agreed to stop writing you. I didn’t have much need for a medic after that.”

He glanced over to me, and for a moment, our gazes locked. It made me remember things I didn’t want to remember. All the letters I’d written that had gone unanswered. The pressure he’d gotten for fraternizing with any girl, much less one with a noncompliant mother. How they’d made him arrest her anyway.

How he’d witnessed her murder.

I believed him, that he couldn’t have saved her. But even though it was useless, sometimes I wondered if he’d really done everything he possibly could—everything I would have done. Thoughts like this led me nowhere, of course, and only made it harder to be close to him. He was both the cause of my pain and the cure.

“So how are you?” He cleared his throat. “Really,” he added.

I felt my skin stretch tight at his words, like all the anger and fear was expanding. It was pressing at my lungs, making it hard to breathe. And he must have felt it, too, because he pushed off the wall and stared a hole through his boots.

“Hungry,” I said. “What do you think it’ll be tonight?”

A beat passed. Then another.

“Pizza,” he said finally, and I breathed out a sigh of relief that he’d changed the subject. “Maybe spaghetti. And ice cream for dessert.” The corner of his mouth quirked up.

“Sounds delicious,” I said. Canned ham and beans were more likely, but sometimes it was easier to pretend.

*

“WHO wants ice cream sundaes?”

I buried my head under the pillow. Was she seriously going to pretend that we had ice cream, when we didn’t even have a freezer?

“Too bad. I guess I’ll have to eat it all myself.”

I groaned. The blank tablet of paper lay beside me, untouched. How many letters had I written to Chase in the last six months? Twenty? Thirty? And not one response. Not to say he’d arrived in Chicago and started training. Not to say he missed me.

He’d promised he’d write, and I’d believed him.

I shouldn’t have.

I ignored my grumbling stomach as long as I could, but facing her was inevitable. I pushed off my bed and dragged myself into the kitchen.

She sat at the table, hands folded neatly behind a heaping bowl of instant mashed potatoes, the powdered kind that came out of a blue box. There were two spoons, one directly before her, the other in front of my seat. She’d fashioned some kind of triangle-shaped sailor hat from a brown paper bag and placed it regally on her head.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said.

“Oh, did you want some ice cream? I’m not sure there’s enough to share,” she taunted.

Just to humor her, I sat. I couldn’t look her in the face though; the hat was too ridiculous.

She lifted her spoon, filling it with a huge dollop of mashed potatoes, and stuck it in her mouth, making all sorts of satisfied noises.

I smiled.