Chapter 7

I kinda love this chapter. It is lame. It is cheesy. Guys probably don't actually think like this. But I love the bit about the singing. That will make the final cut regardless of what all else does.
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Patrick didn’t know what to make of this strange, naïve girl that had fallen into his lap. She was reckless to the point of stupidity, and completely ignorant of most of the world around her. But he thought of the curiosity that filled her eyes at the sight of the orange trees, at her first rain, at the view of the sunset and the ocean, and he knew that there was more to her than met the eye. A spring of wonder welled up inside her, bursting to get out. No matter how much she tried to resist, no matter how much she pretended not to care about the world around her, her green eyes said it all. She was curious, and found herself in awe. There was so much she didn’t know, and he was eager to tell her everything he knew about the world, about life, to see that look of wonder in her eyes again and again…
He lay awake in the tree, staring up at the stars through the baring branches. He doubted she’d ever seen the stars amid the bright, blinding lights of the cities. He could spot a city from miles away; they were like burning stars, bound to the earth by invisible ropes, having been lured into some kind of trap by a giant or a magnetic field. Their immense powerhouses could make midnight as bright as noon, but what good was man’s light when it blocked out the stars?
He didn’t like the feeling that was filling up the empty spaces in his heart. It went against every rational thought in his mind, and he knew it. He didn’t like the wonder in her eyes or the look on her face when she saw his bloody lip. He didn’t like the way her hand had felt on his face. They scared him, took away his security and certainty, and made him more vulnerable than he’d ever been before. Patrick wasn’t one to show signs of vulnerability. However she made him feel, though, he felt deeper and more painful the look of terror on her face just hours before. He hated that look, that fear, the man who had frightened her, and tried to do worse… he hated that much worse than any uncertainty she could create in him.
But she was a National. He was a Memorist. She was a temporary influence on his life, the hole in the clouds on a gray day. She’d be gone the minute she found her brother, or anyplace better to be. She had no reason to stay otherwise, and he had no reason to expect her to. He had no reason to will her to stay.
But he did.
It was the companionship, he was sure. He hadn’t seen a girl since he left for the battlefield over a year ago. She probably wasn’t quite as pretty as she seemed to him. Surely it was just the excitement of seeing a feminine face that stirred his emotions. She probably wasn’t all that unique where she came from, either. Any number of Nationals would be ignorant as to the normal processes of the earth… but would they all be so amazed as her? The adults, the real Nationals, had chosen their paths. They’d decided not to give the past a chance, to leave the natural workings of the world behind in the interest of extreme progress, but where was Piper’s choice? What would she choose had she been given the initial choice?
Did she have a choice now?
That was a hope for Patrick, the light of reality shining at the end of his doomed fantasy. She had a choice. She was slowly beginning to see all that the world, this world, the world outside the cities, had to offer her. She’d seen the changing colors in the leaves. Who would trade that for synthetic trees with copper trunks? She’d seen stars. Who would trade those for blazing white lampposts? As to her own city, it was gone, lost in a raid. He’d gathered that much from talking to her. What was left for her?
Her father and brother. That’s what was left for her. And they’d probably kill him on sight just for wearing his uniform.
He wanted to wish she’d never find them, that she’d wander forever looking for them, but he couldn’t imagine the painful expression that would scar her face if she discovered that they were gone. No, she’d have to find them. He sighed aloud in exasperation. Part of him just wanted her to disappear. It would have been easier to let the soldier carry her off…
No, that wouldn’t have been easier. He never would have forgiven himself.
It was stupid to feel this way, stupid to allow her to get under his skin and affect him this way. These things didn’t happen in a period of forty-eight hours. It took a lifetime to learn to trust someone. He had never told anyone else about his mother, not a single man in his regiment. He had even shied away from the subject, and yet this strange, green-eyed girl, a National, no less, had broken his defense without even trying. All she had to do was ask a simple question, and the answers came spilling out. He wondered if his father had felt this way when he and Patrick’s mother had met. Did he know before they even started that she would leave? Or did it sneak up on him? Had he believed she would stay? Patrick had believed she would stay. Patrick hadn’t seen anything coming.
He’d woken up on a Saturday morning, gone downstairs like usual. He had cornflakes that morning. At first he didn’t notice anything was wrong, but before long he began to realize the eerie silence that had crept over the house. Mom wasn’t singing.
For as long as he could remember, Mom had sung in the mornings. She could never hit the notes right, but that didn’t stop her. She sang everything from show tunes to little songs she made up around the house, striking the notes with stunning inaccuracy. It always bothered him until that day. Then he realized that the singing was assurance, security. He knew Mom was there when she was singing, however bad it sounded. And he realized he would give anything, anything in the world, to hear her off kilter notes rising into the rafters one more time. All at once his memories of Mom singing were transformed from bothersome to the most beautiful sounds he’d ever heard.
He knew, without anybody telling him, without another moment’s thought, that he’d never hear that awful, beautiful sound again. She’d left, and she wouldn’t be back.
And ever since that day, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t make the same mistakes as his dad. He wouldn’t trust somebody to stay. He’d trusted his mom, and she’d let him down. That was enough to ruin his faith. Why should he believe in a National girl with no reasonable commitment? He didn’t have anything to offer her, didn’t even know how she felt about him. He knew better than to let himself feel anything for her, because she’d leave. Just like his mom. Worse yet, she’d be taken like his dad. Either way, he had no way to keep her, so he had to make sure he didn’t care.
Somewhere amidst his thinking and battering emotions, exhaustion won over, and he drifted into a deeper sleep than he’d had since she came. He woke to the blinding sun in his eyes and an unusual noise. He was sure the stupid cat was dying, being strangled by some wild animal…
Until he looked down from the tree and saw her with the cat in her arms, singing to it. Singing in the morning. Just like his mom.
He had sworn ever since the last time he’d heard that noise that he’d never fall victim to this.
He had sworn to himself that he’d never fall in love.