I'm Not Sorry
By Laura Schiller
Based on the Matched Trilogy
Copyright: Ally Condie
Prompt 26: Compass
To Indie's mind, Ky Markham is both like and unlike the Pilot. They are both brilliant, which earns them her wholehearted respect, but while the Pilot flies like a mathematician, Ky flies like the rebel poet he is. He loves the sky, and it shows in every gesture: the way his hands dance over the controls, his fierce frown of concentration, and the breathless wonder in his sea-blue eyes. Sitting next to him in the copilot's seat, she imagines being touched like that – seen like that – until her face flames to match her hair and she has to wrestle down her thoughts to focus on her mission.
She does not call it love. She's seen too much cruelty to believe in it like good Citizens do; her dream of a blue dress and a golden-haired Match appears childish in the wake of the Plague. But she wants him, the way a compass needle wants to turn north. She could not stop it if she tried, and so she does not try.
They are alike that way, she and Ky. They are drawn on by their ideas as single-mindedly as metal is drawn by metal. He understands; she can taste it in the salt of his tears when she kisses him. But the moment he draws away, his eyes see right through her.
Because if Ky is her compass, Cassia Reyes is his. The reason she wants him is the same reason she can never have him.
Still, she is not sorry. Because if given the choice between moving and standing still, she will always, always, choose to keep moving.
Even the wrong direction is better than none at all.