Without Flight

Part 5: Sarah May 19th

A week has past and that evening in the café has crowded my thoughts. I can't get his image out of my mind. Dale seemed to know about everything—philosophy, art, music, politics. He had a way of making you want to hear more without making you feel inferior for not always knowing what he was talking about. Against my better judgment I make an effort to see him again. I meet him outside his class to his surprise and we go to the same café we had gone to previously. I order my coffee and just sit there silent for a few minutes, my fingers circling the ring of my cup. I start to tap my fingers nervously on the table.

"I couldn't get it out of my head," I blurt out.

"You couldn't get what out?" he asks.

"I mean you...I couldn't get you out of my head. I mean, what are we doing here?" I am rambling.

"We are drinking coffee in a café," he answers calmly.

"I shouldn't be here...I shouldn't. I have to go." I throw coins on the table, pick up my stuff and head for the door.

"Sarah wait! Sarah just..." Dale starts.

I am out before I can hear the end of his sentence.

That night I do something I have never done in my adult life. I cry. I hear a knock on the door. My mother moves in swiftly giving me barely enough time to wipe my face clean.

"Sarah? What's wrong?" she asks through worried eyes.

"Nothing! I'm fine! Just please leave me alone," I beg.

My mother kneels down and slides in next to me. She pushes my hair back and I don't stop her.

"Sarah, you can tell me anything. You know that I love you."

"Yes I know, but you shouldn't. How is that even possible?"

I had known what love was from what I read about in books. I knew the damage that love could cause. It made sense for our sector to outlaw it. Love was dangerous. It could make you do terrible things. I had been given the B52-12 compound at birth just like everyone else. Yet I somehow managed to feel it anyway for my mother. I could see myself starting to feel it for Dale.

"We're different Sarah. You have to know that by now."

"I don't want to be different. There are laws. You always told me, a foolish man goes up against an army with only a shield. I can't change the way things are."

"I wish you didn't have to suffer like I did. Whatever it is you feel, hiding it will only bring you a life of pain and exposing it will be bring terrible consequences."

"So what should I do?"

"I can't tell you what to do," she coolly replies. I look for an answer in her eyes. My mother had lived a life of sadness and I could see now that it had worn down her spirit. It had made her like the rest of them—without any real emotion. She was a ghost of a woman. The laws that she had so desperately clung to had wilted her soul and it was evident that a piece of her had died a long time ago.

I finally ask her the question I never dared ask her in my life until now, "Who is in the photo?" Her eyes widen in shock. I wonder if it will break her or if she will be strong enough to tell me the truth.

"His name was Henry and I loved him. When my mother found out about us—about what we felt for each other. She turned him into the authorities and I never saw him again. It was a long time ago. You see my mother loved me, it's why she didn't turn § in. We would have been caught eventually and she spared me the terrible fate of such crimes. She never allowed herself to show it though, but in that moment I knew. Soon after, my mother made me put my ticket in for a mate and I was matched with your father."

I stare at her without saying a word. I wonder about the man and his terrible fate. I know that my mother would not harm me and a part of me believes that she would not harm Dale. Yet there is something inside of me that will not allow me to even utter the truth about him.