Premium Seats [Klance] ✅

34 - Choices

LANCE

Perhaps telling his dad that he passed his simulation test had been a mistake. Perhaps he should've let his simulation crash more than twice and had Admiral Sanda cross his name out of the list. Perhaps he shouldn't have told his dad he wanted to follow in his footsteps back when he was a kid.

Because now Jorge McClain wouldn't shut up about him being enlisted in the Air Force – even though it was just one fucking simulation test and it wouldn't exactly gurantee a fucking scholarship offer. And while the man wasn't shoving anything particularly stressful to him, Lance felt his anxiety build up nonetheless.

Not a week passed by without his dad telling people that his son would join the armed forces, as though fully and positively certain about it, and it was putting an emotional strain on Lance himself. Like this constant twisting and squeezing in his stomach at the fairly ratiomal prospect that he might shatter his dad's hankering somehow.

He didn't want to. But he also didn't really want to join the forces. And he couldn't exactly tell Jorge that without plunging the man into an abyss of disillusionment.

So yes, at least twice a week now, he had to meet up with either Adam Wright or this other ranked member in the Air Force called Curtis Tucker – or both – at the hangar to further polish his flying skills. Most of the time he would sit and observe, occasionally participating when he was asked with a question. And since he was still seventeen, he wasn't allowed to actually fly the plane – only proceeding with the simulation on a more advanced level.

And the advanced level proved to be way more difficult than the usual one he used. He felt like he was training inside an alien warship.

"You know," Commander Tucker was saying to him as Lance exited the simulation room, "since you're here twice a week, you can actually improve faster."

Lance scratched the nape of his neck, a bit embarrassed. "You think so?"

"Officer Wright here says you have a knack for executing practical matters," he tapped the clipboard in his hand with the tip of his pen. "He mentioned you play basketball?"

Like Adam, Curtis was a laid-back person. His towering height had appeared intimidating at first, but the serene aura radiated by the way he spoke (always with a smile) doused Lance's qualms at once.

"I do," answered Lance. "Speaking of ... there's gonna be a match soon, and I don't think I'll be able to attend this session for the next two weeks."

"Two weeks?" Commander Tucker raised his eyebrows. "Well, okay. You're gonna have to inform Officer Wright so we can rearrange your schedule. That all right?"

"Yeah,"

Commander Tucker nodded with a smile. "That's settled then," he said. "We can arrange another test for you some time before summer, so you don't really have to rush."

Which was all right, except that as time wore on, Lance could feel this gnawing feeling in his chest branching out and curling around his bones. He really didn't want to go on, but what choice did he have? His dad wasn't a man who would take "no" for an answer. And Lance had endured enough lectures growing up to learn to appease his dad in many ways possible.

Even if it meant taking away what made him happy.

Driving home later on, his head was completely wrung out. He could feel himself teetering between his dad's choice and his, and the bridge of choice upon which he treaded grew narrower along the way. Sooner or later his grant of freewill would be snatched from him the more he vacillated; either he act now or let the world act for him. There were times where he knew what he wanted to do, but then reality swooped down and slapped him across the face, leaving him in a state of incertitude all over again.