Spark

Chapter 3

In the following days things go back to normal. Almost. I am still waiting for the final test results, the thought always in the back of my head. And someone does come to question me. I keep my answers vague. Keeping the truth isn't exactly lying. So I don't mention the woman who literally blew the windows to pieces. I tell them the rogue soldiers were wearing black and that it was hard to see anything amongst the chaos. It was risky but I wouldn't give away the information when I secretly shared their opinion.

On Monday the attack is forgotten. The windows of the train are restored and any sign it happened at all is erased.

Classes are a welcome distraction and over lunch Sara manages to cheer me up and we talk about harmless nothings like boys, High Society, boys again, Christopher Collins – which is Sara's fault alone – make-up, nails and movies. Every time the topic returns to Chris I groan internally. Now that he is back he lives up to his reputation and makes up for what he has missed while he was gone. He is seen making out with someone else every day, all of them gorgeous. Which isn't a category I fit in. I'm too plain, my hair is too frizzy, my eyes too dark for my light skin tone, my chest too flat I purposefully choose my closes to blend in. I don't really care. Sure it is nice to hear someone call me pretty but I like what I see when I look into the mirror and that is all I need.

I closed off after Jill's death. Other people couldn't understand what I felt towards the government. To the people who are responsible for my sister's death. And even as a child I understood I would be in serious trouble if I ever said it out loud. So I keep my mouth shut and keep to myself most of the time.

It doesn't help that we still get Jill's food rations and that we could have stayed in our old bigger house which was supposed to go to families with two children and not just one. But my parents couldn't bear living in a house where everything reminded them of their deceased daughter and we had moved shortly after.

When my brother was born we moved again and we were assigned a house with room for two children and a workspace for my mother's tailoring business. None of that was ever enough to make up for what they did to Jill. A loved one couldn't be replaced.

Two years after her death they developed a vaccine that was said to reduce the side effects of the serum by fifty percent. Now there is at least a chance to survive if the mutations cause problems. We were forced to watch Jill die knowing that she couldn't be cured.

When I come home from school I find my dad in the living room. He is lying on the couch, asleep. His arm presses down on the remote and the program randomly switches between channels. I gently pull the remote from under his arm without waking him and switch the TV off. Mom and Aidan are in the kitchen where my little brother is playing with his toy cars imitating engine sounds. With his blond hair and dimples he looks nothing like me but maybe it will change when he grows older. I ruffle his hair with a smile and sit down at the table across from Mom.

"What's wrong, Sweetie?", Mom asks without looking up from her sewing machine. She is working too much but it is her way of coping. She runs her little shop but always has additional orders from her customers. I would have helped her but I am way too clumsy for something as delicate as a needle.

I sigh and drop my head on my arms on the table.

"Just the usual shit." I mumble into my sweater sleeve.

Mom gasps.

"Language, Stella! Not in front of your brother!" But she is too curious to be mad at me.

"Boy trouble?"

"No" I roll my eyes where she can't see it, before I lift my head to scowl at her.

"Are you sure? I was eighteen once too you know. I know how it feels to cry over a guy."