Page 44 of Crash Landing
I had to get away from him. I took my slices of space apple and ran up to my room claiming I was going to record my findings. Maybe I could take photos of the root for my records. Study it. That would have all been smart and productive, but as soon as I began doing work, my brain couldn’t focus long enough to make any real progress. Saleuk occupied every corner of my thoughts and it was driving me insane.
I managed to snap a few photos with my datapad before I finished off the last of the root. It didn’t taste like anything spectacular, but root vegetables on Earth didn’t either. It was food, though, and so far, I wasn’t feeling ill from it.
When I noticed a tapping sound on the roof, I almost thought nothing of it. But then it picked up. It grew louder and louder until I could see very faint lines of water trickling down the mirror’s wall from a leak in the roof.
It was raining. I was surprised it hadn’t rained since we arrived seeing as the moon was covered in thick clouds.
I loved rain. The sound of it. The smell of it. I rolled onto my back for a moment and just let the rhythm of the downpour sink in. It brought me peace at a time when I was so wound up I thought might break.
But that peace made my mind clear for a moment long enough to finally, truly analyze something. Saleuk. I knew I’d heard two hearts when I slept beside him. It would have meant nothing to me a year ago, but now that I knew more about hispeople, I knew exactly what two heartbeats meant. It meant he’d surged. It meant his body was functioning like it would have before the Thinning. That was huge.
So why hadn’t he told me? Why wasn’t he more excited?
A part of me wondered if I was reading into things too deeply. Perhaps he surged in the year we were apart. A surge wasn’t exclusive, after all. Someone else could have awoken that part of him. Thinking it was me was a little naïve.
Hopeful.
It could have been anyone, I reasoned.
But I want it to be me.
What was wrong with me and my damaged brain? No one wanted me. Least of all Saleuk. I was certain of it. I had been a burden to him back then and I was a burden to him on that moon.
But that brief moment when we were teasing each other and fell into the water was eye-opening. I remembered feeling a shock that sunk right to my core and that wasn’t normal. It couldn’t have been. Humans didn’t react that way with others. Every time he touched me, I tingled. My skin heated and my stomach fluttered.
Any time a human touched me, I felt icky or on guard. I felt suspicious and cautious.
Humans always wanted something. At least, the humans I grew up around did.
I wanted to touch myself.
I wanted to touch myself, close my eyes, and imagine Saleuk.
Pressing the heels of my hands to my forehead, I suppressed a tortured whine and sat up abruptly. I needed to get my shit together and sitting in my room was no longer helping.
I walked down to the lobby to see Saleuk standing under a stream of water dripping from the ceiling above. Still shirtless,damn him. He was crouched, setting what he said was a water filter over a small basin as if testing it.
“Do you really need a water filter for rainwater?” I asked.
“Not for the rainwater. For what it passes when it seeps through the holes in the roof, perhaps. But I’m mostly just testing it.”
“How do you know if it’s working?”
He stood and pointed at a little glass tube on the side. “If that turns any color that is not clear, it means it’s filtering contaminants.”
I crossed my arms over myself, realizing that the rain brought a level of frigid air with it. I was still damp from our dip in the river, so it chilled me.
“Did you study your food?” Saleuk said, somewhat teasingly.
“Yes, I studied it.” I followed him as he sat down again at the table, pulling his still-damp wrap shirt over himself as if he knew his being shirtless was a distraction. Sitting down across from him, I said, “I was also going over some theories about things. Ideas.”
“Theories and ideas?” he asked with a smirk.
“Yes. Theories and ideas.”
“About plants?”
“No, not so much,” I swallowed nervously. “More, about people. A person, actually.” I watched as he reached out and took one of the remaining slices of space apple, biting a big chunk of it off with his teeth. “Can I ask you something?”
