Sickness

Part Three

"I'm never having kids." I express my thoughts out loud.

"You're lying. You've always wanted kids." Gale says quietly.

"Well I change my mind." I insist. "I will never give my child an ultimatum."

"Why the sudden change of heart?"

"I just..." I try to find a way to logically explain it. "I've just been thinking about it, and I know how much love I will have for my child and I never want him or her to have to face it alone."

Gale looks at me and smiles. "Well you didn't have to face it alone. You had me."

"Thanks Gale." I kiss his cheek lightly.

When we neared the end of the tunnel, the light shines in and nearly blinds us. When our eyes adjust, what we see is horrifying. Our city is barely standing. It's a filthy disaster of what once was. All of the colonies built were just walls put up around large cities across the country. Nobody really knew which was which unless they had visited there before. There were rumors of ours being New York or Chicago. I hadn't been to or seen either of them before the disaster... so I was unsure. But the city was large. Skyscrapers towered up, but they were shorter than the walls. And somehow that made them seem a little less amazing. However, as the city began to disintegrate, the towers seemed to shrink. Windows were busted out, and the buildings were now longer a shiny silver color from close or far. They were filthy skeletons of what used to be something of purpose. Trash littered the streets throughout the entire city and the darkness of the ground seemed to make the blue sky just a little bit dimmer. Anyone could look at the broken statues and worn monuments and tell that this had once been a place of happiness and hope. But now it was no more than an aged city with a past that has been long forgotten in its future.

Gale and I didn't speak of the elephant in the room. What we had left behind was a city on a spiraling downfall. That's why we were so afraid to see what it had become. However, our reasons for being here were much brighter than what we were focusing on. Our mothers.

We turned down a dirt path that ran right along one of the outside walls. It would eventually come up against the back of our mothers' duplex. When Gale and I were kids, we used to play on this path all the time. It was secluded from the hustle and bustle of the main city. We would play together for hours on end back her. Until we became teenagers and life got serious.

"A lot of memories on this stretch." Gale murmured.

"I know." I say, watching my boots kick up the loose dirt with every step I took. "I miss that free feeling."

"Do you remember when we were kids and you kissed me?"

Of course I remembered. Four years and I still remembered that stupid day. Gale and I were approaching our teenage years and we knew that our mother's wanted me to be a mother and him to be an active father so we wouldn't get drafted. We both knew that at some point that we would have to do the deed, and we thought that having kissed someone first would make it easier. So at thirteen, we made a pact that we would be each others first kiss. So if it was bad, we wouldn't get made fun of. So that's what we do. But two years later, we had developed an opinion of our own, and here we were now.

"That was the worst kiss ever!" I said.

"Oh please! I was freaking Romeo! I was the man!"

I laughed, "You were very spitty!"

"Well then good thing we didn't get married like our moms wanted us to! Or you'd be kissing this spitty mouth everyday!" he joked, pointing to his lips.

My mind froze at the remembrance of all of all of the many comments our mom's made about us growing up and falling in love. Marriage was a weird concept nowadays. It was traditional. I believed in tradition, but it wasn't something you heard about regularly anymore. Not many teenagers plan that far that soon. The woman who ended up with Gale in the future was going to be very lucky. He was handsome, and smart, and a good person. He deserved a woman as good as he was. I wasn't that woman and never would be.

When we finally get to the house, we just stroll right in. We find them sitting in my mother's kitchen table playing a board game. When they see us, they leap from their chairs and hug us.

My mother clasps her hands together and holds them against her lips. Tears begin to well up in her big blue eyes, but she smiles. "You two have grown up so much." she looks over at Gale's mom. "Marci don't they make the most beautiful couple?"

"Woah mom." I make the cut it out motion. "We actually... we're not..."

"We aren't a thing." Gale spits out.

"Oh." Marci's happy expression drops for a moment.

We talk to our mothers for hours. They tell us about the city and all that has been going on. They tell us that there have been several infected people found over the past few months, and that it's making the entire city skittish. We talk about our lives and our training and what has been going on until time runs out.

Curfew rolls around soon, and Gale and I prepare to leave. We say long goodbyes because we don't know how long it will be until we see our mother's again.

"Oh honey." my mother pushes my dark red hair out of my face "I wish you would just leave that dreaded camp."

"Mom, you know I can't." I hug her again.

She pulls away and touches my stomach lightly. "It wouldn't be that hard. I know you bunk with Gale. It wouldn't be hard to-"

"No mom." I push her hand away. "I won't do that do Gale or a baby. I won't bring a child into this world and let them go through what you are."

"Vala I'm really worried about our mothers. Their alone with this disease going through the streets. They don't know how to protect themselves.." Gale trails off.

"I know Gale." I touch his arm in some pathetic attempt to comfort him. "I'm worried about them too."

"Maybe... maybe we could go back."

"Gale! Are you nuts? We can't sneak back there!" I gesture to the huge concrete wall we just passed through.

"I understand that." he looks at his feet. "We could pull it off if we really wanted to though."

"I know we could."

We walk silently back to his cabin and he sneaks me in. We avoid turning on any lights so we don't draw attention. Gale climbs into his bed, and I crawl into mine. I roll over to sleep against the wall, but there is something in my way. I feel what it is, and I stumble out of bed onto the floor. The light turns on. From my bed, a big buff boy emerges.

"Sorry man!" He says to Gale. "I didn't know you were entertaining. But for the record, she was all over me." The boy laughs and moves over to the other vacant bunk bed.

Gale gives me a surprised look. "I couldn't tell what it was!" I insist.

He laughs and looks over to the guy. "Just keep your mouth shut or you'll be twinning with Kendall Rogers."

"What happened to Kendall?"

"Your buddy Gale over there punched his in the face." the boy tells me.

"Why?"

"That my friend is a secret." Gale says, flipping off the light.

--------------------------

Chapter Three rewritten as of 8/31/2014