Chapter 22 Hearts at the Divide #2
Nathan was always thoughtful, always patient.
It deepened Soren’s desire for him. He swallowed, summoning every ounce of his courage.
“Father was talking to me about our upcoming birthdays and matching ceremonies. He said we have to marry women, have children, as the law dictates, but that no rule forbids us to keep seeing each other afterward.”
When Nathan’s smile thinned and the joy drained from his eyes, Soren paused to lick his lips, which had suddenly gone dry. He trailed his fingertips through Nathan’s chest hair, finding comfort in the touch.
“He said it’s commonly done, that he and Mother both have ‘hobbies,’ he called them. Don’t you see?” His hand slid away, and he sat up, peering excitedly down at his lover. “We can keep things just the way they are between us—just with the obligatory wives and children. Everything will work out.”
Nathan frowned, sitting up to face him. “That’s not what I want, though.
I want us to be a couple, to center my life around you—not just be a weekend quickie.
You’ll stay here with your wife because you’re in The Institute of Excellence, but they could marry me to someone from anywhere in the nation. I might have to move far away.”
Soren hadn’t thought of that. His enthusiasm waned, and spirits drooped. “I guess I assumed you’d still live at Harmony Ridge. You might,” he added with a note of optimism. “It would make sense. The Oracle is the epitome of logic and efficiency. Why send you far away when there are women close by?”
Nathan rubbed the back of his neck. “Isaac was matched with a woman from Londonderry in the northern plains, and he had to move to the Derry Valley commune to grow wheat. It’s more than picking wives, Soren.
I could be sent away. My plan is better.
” Nathan’s indomitable gaze bore into him. “We leave together.”
Soren’s head jerked back in surprise, and he huffed out a laugh. “What? How? Where?”
“Both the Frostlands to the north and Queensland to the south allow open same-sex relationships. There’d be nobody to order our lives for us. We could be us there.”
Terror clamped his throat, choking the breath from him. His jaw fell, his arms wrapping around his bare chest to hug himself. “Run away? Leave everything we’ve ever known? And what—we’d just walk hundreds of kilometers? I can’t make it in the wilds!” Panic overran his careful order.
Nathan caught him, a firm grip steadying his shoulder, the callus bite of his palms digging in. “I can. I can hunt, fight, build fire, and shelter. I’ll take care of both of us,” he earnestly vowed. “I’ll protect you.”
“But if we’re caught.” Soren’s head spun in a dizzying swirl of fear.
“They’ll send us to a reindoctrination camp.
I’d lose any chance of being in the College of Ministers one day.
They might expel me from The institute!” His pulse hammered harder with every thought, the rush of blood filling his ears, each image more horrifying than the last. “Then I couldn’t even be a scientist. My parents would disown me.
” Reaching out, he grabbed Nathan’s arms, stared into his eyes.
“What about your parents, siblings? You’d just leave them? ”
Nathan’s insistence seemed to ease, his hands sliding from Soren’s shoulders down his arms. “They can make it without me. Denver’s almost a man, and I could be relocated anyway.
Pa’s agnostic, doesn’t get involved in Cult matters, but Mama believes everything Shepherd Cain says, every word in the Book of Doctrine, without question.
I can’t get through to her at all, and it makes me angry.
Theocracy crushes individual thought. How can you stand it?
How can you even dream of joining the Ministry? ”
The look of disgust on Nathan’s face pierced Soren to the bone.
He didn’t like the way they operated either.
“If I were a minister in the oligarchy, I could make changes from the inside. Don’t you see?
” He lifted tender knuckles to brush Nathan’s cheek.
“We can’t build a better society by running away. ”
Nathan pulled back with a scowl. “So, you want me to marry whoever the Oracle spits out, go where I’m sent, do as I’m told, sacrifice control over my own life on the chance that one day you’ll sit in the College of Ministers and make changes from the inside? Sweat and toil, Soren—that’s not fair!”
“Neither is demanding I risk my life and everything I’ve spent it working for to go tromping through borderlands to reach a place that might be better?
We wouldn’t last a day!” Mutated beasts, poisonous plants, radiation leaks, ravenous mutants, wildlings, raiders—every hazard known to mankind.
Plus, how would they find the way? A shudder rippled through Soren as he imagined it.
Reindoctrination camp. A bold individualist he’d met at Hernando’s was caught speaking against the Core Cult over a year ago and sent to one of those.
She returned six months later, practically zombified.
Every spark of her old vibrancy snuffed out.
“So, what do we do?” Nathan asked. “Break up?”
“No!” The thought frightened Soren as much as any of the others. He grabbed Nathan into a hug and wept on his shoulder. “I don’t know. I’m just so afraid.”
Soren knew he wasn’t irrational or overly emotional. His fears were grounded in hard facts. If only he could freeze this moment, keep Nathan’s arms around him forever.