Chapter 2
I feel the straw mattress sag near my waist, and open my eyes to find my father resting on the edge of the bed, his olive-skinned face warmly grinning down at me.
"Lynnetta, sweetie. It's time to get up. I need your help in the shop today. This morning Panlee's mother came over to tell me that she is out sick with something terrible."
Panlee is the shop assistant my parents hired a few years ago, when they realized how awful I am at selling and trading cloth to the locals in the district.
"Okay, papa. I'll head down there as soon as I can."
He brushes my hair from my face, smiles, and leaves the room. My hands grope around until they pull off the thin sheet covering me, not that it had offered much protection from the bitter cold that crept through the house. Luckily, I had donned my best pair of woolen socks last night before falling asleep.
Sitting down in front of the cracked mirror that hangs on the wooden wall in my bedroom, I take my comb and begin to pick through the thin, tangled mess on top of my head. If I'm working in the shop today, my father will expect me to look my best. Not that I'm ever allowed to look otherwise. My fingers place the strands of hair into two long braids. When I am fully satisfied, I get dressed and walk out of my room into the kitchen, the smell of my mother's porridge filling my nostrils.
"Lynnetta, it's Saturday and you do not have school, so I'm sure you planned on busying yourself with your studies, but your father needs you in the shop today. I have to do the wash, and apparently Panlee fell ill last night and-"
"I know, mother. He already told me this morning before he left. I'm headed down there right now, actually."
"Not before you eat. Can't have you starving, now can we?"
Her question makes it seem like we have enough food to keep ourselves from going hungry. We always had just enough to get by, but never enough to get full. Still, any food was better than no food.
My body finds its place at the table while my mother sets a small bowl of mush in front of me. The greyish cereal goes down, but not very willingly. It is slimy and tasteless, but thankfully it calms the rumbling of hunger in my belly. Donning my ratty, woolen coat, I jog outside into the freshly falling snow and over to my father's textile shop in the square.
"Closing time! How'd we do today, Miss Lynn?" my father asks when the last customer leaves the store.
"Well, we sold fourteen whole yards today. That's better than all of last week combined, according to your ledger," I remark, reading through the leather-bound book of transactions.
"It's the cold. We always sell more fabric when the weather goes south," he notes.
As we sweep the store one last time before leaving, a figure appears at the door, and a rush of cold air floods into the shop.
"Hello, Mr. Flaxbourne. Got time for one last customer?" Markas asks.
"Always do," replied my father, sizing up Markas from across the counter. It wasn't unheard of, but it also was not often that Seam children came into his shop. "What can I get for you, son?"
It's funny, hearing my father call him that. Really funny, because the two of them could easily be mistaken as father and son, with their dark hair and brown eyes. My father is always quick to compliment me on receiving my mother's good looks, but sometimes I wonder if he is glad I look like all the other girls from town, and none of the girls from the Seam.
"I need a yard of your thickest cotton, my mother is making a blanket," Markas tells my father, stumbling on his last word. It's apparent that he just noticed that it was myself, not Panlee, standing behind the counter. His awkwardness quickens my pulse, and suddenly I'm aware of how much my hands are shaking. He looks so handsome, with his windswept hair falling onto his forehead, but if my father knew my thoughts, that would surely be the end of me. Counting my inhales and exhales to keep my cool, I head over to the bolts of fabric, cut off a yard of the requested material, and fold it neatly into a square. While handing the bundle to Markas, our fingers touch, and my face gets hot. I turn away quickly, so that my father will not see the redness that now fills my cheeks. Markas fidgets around in his pocket for his money, then sets down some coins on the counter, his eyes wandering wildly about the room. My father counts the coins, thanks Markas for his purchase, and ushers him out the door. The anxiety inside of me slowly fades away as papa continues cleaning up, completely oblivious to the forbidden love before him just moments ago.
"Fifteen yards! Wait until we tell your mother. I'm so proud of how well you handled everything today! Maybe we should go back to having you work in the shop after all!" he comments gleefully, as we lock up the front door.
"Then I wouldn't have as much time for my studies, father," I point out.
What he doesn't need to know is that my after school study sessions are usually an excuse to go see Markas. Sometimes we try to study, but that never lasts long. As my father and I walk home, our boots crunching in the snow, I let myself wonder what would have happened if my father found out about Markas tonight. The though makes me shudder. When we finally arrive at our home, I rush to my room and let out a sigh of relief. Markas and I would have to be more careful. Close calls like this could lead to trouble.
"Lynn… do you love me?" Markas's eyes filled with curiosity.
It's been over a month since the incident in my father's shop, and Markas and I are once again hiding out in the Victor's Village.
"What kind of question is that?"
Not sure how to take his sudden twist in the conversation, my pulse rises quickly and my palms begin to sweat.
"An honest one. If you answer it, you can ask me, and I'll answer it, too."
"But why do I need to answer first? It's a bit forward, and we've only been seeing each other for half a year. I'm not sure I'm want to answer it, unless you tell me why you brought it up."
There. That was a good, solid response. He wouldn't wriggle my emotions out of me so easily. Although he might get some of my lunch. My stomach feels like it can't decide whether I should be happy, sad, afraid, or puking.
"Well, my birthday is coming up soon, and I'll be turning seventeen. That only leaves one more year until I start work in the mines, and my mother is worried I'm not going to settle down soon enough," he explains calmly.
"So what does that have to do with your question, exactly?"
I'm still thrown off and slightly bewildered by the original inquiry. What in the world is this boy trying to get at here?
"If you love me, then that means that I will be one-hundred-percent confident in telling my mother not to worry about anything. That I'm already looking towards the future, not only the here and now. Obviously, there are always obstacles to the future, but I like to be optimistic. And I was sort of hoping you would have answered 'yes' by now."
My brain is attempting to process his words, but they still are not making sense. Markas can clearly see the incomprehension on my face, because after a few moments of silence, he continues, his sentences turning into ramblings.
"Right now, I'm not thinking about my future. Frankly, I don't care about it at all. That's because all I can think about is you, and how I love spending time with you, and how we are here together, right at this very moment. And it's great. But if you love me, Lynn, and we're a serious couple, then there is a hope for a future for us. And I really want that future. So if you say you love me, then I can start letting myself dream about a life with you, and I'll finally be planning out my future. I'll be able to reassure my mother that I'm on the right track, and she'll stop fretting so much. She'll also stop trying to sett me up with her silly friends' daughters, a practice I would love to stop. And all of this depends on if you love me or not and…"
He takes a deep breath and I have a feeling I know what's coming. When he resumes speaking, I find I was right in my assumption.
"Lynnetta Flaxbourne, I, Markas Fenly, love you. Honestly, I do. And so with that confession, I really, truly want to know the answer - do you love me?"
Knowing that my silence is killing him, I force out the best answer I can under such nerve-wracking circumstances.
"Yeah, I guess so."