Page 27 of Her Alien Warrior
"It's okay," I finally said as she drifted to sleep, curled up on the tiny, two-seater couch. Lifting her up onto the top bunk wasn't possible anymore that she wasn't seven years old, but a fully grown woman, capable of dreaming big dreams that might not include me or Earth.
When I exited her room, William was waiting for me. His eyes were bloodshot, and his skin a bit blotchy.
"I wasn't expecting you to wait for me... Have you been out here for long?"
"They don't record us when we're in this section of the ship."
I wrinkled my nose, yet another awkward hang up of mine I had to get over if I wanted to do anything on this ship. Being observed. My face flushed of color thinking about if Sou-el's room was recorded as well, if what wedid was observed by someone on this ship.
I bit my lip, and watched William brood. He had something he wanted to say to me.
I waited for him to speak.
"He told me humans are like pets to necia warriors. They are meant to protect us, and like pets, we attach ourselves to the first source of attraction and comfort. He doesn't trust that what I'm feeling with him is more than that and won't go into rut over someone who will cling to the next source of comfort offered. 'Go seek comfort elsewhere', he said, 'then return to your Earth mate.'"
My heart pounded in my ears at his confession. He was married too?
"Earth mate?"
"I told you I did what was expected of me," he said and then cursed under his breath.
Sliding down the wall next to him, I commiserated. "Sounds like someone told him you had a mate, and he was upset."
"You weren't there."
"No, I wasn't," I agreed.
"He was disgusted, I've seen that look before, I just never expected it would be because I was human," he said while rubbing his face.
The anger in Sou-el's eyes when he sprayed himself with the Elder Sleep was still fresh in my mind, and I hadn't heard from him since.But maybe that was for the best. Would he do the same thing to me that was done to William? He'd come to his senses and remind me I was human, and he was necia, and that I was mated, and this was wrong.
"I'm still married," I confessed to him as a distraction from his own worries about being human. Something out of his control, and it wasn't worse than what I was doing.
He fake laughed and shook his head. "Guess that was part of the requirements for our group. Humans already married, but still choosing to leave for a study on attraction."
"Oh," I intoned, realizing my attempt at throwing myself under fire didn't succeed in distracting him at all, but compounded the issue.
"Everyone at home believes I'll be cured when I come home. Scratch the itch and realize fantasy and reality are just that, a decision, a choice to see delusion or what is in front of me."
"That's awful. I mean, if Holden were here, he'd tell us both to fuck that, and be happy."
He didn't even question who Holden was, or even lift his head from his hands to look at me.
"I do love my son. He's ten, and I can't abandon him for long. I will return, and I can't expect anyone I meet here to come to Earth for me. For now, he thinks it's cool that his dad is out in space, and the program pays well. My family is taken care of..."
"But," I added for him in understanding, "it's like being here has lifted a curtain from your head, and even though you'll return for your son, you don'twant to return to how things were before... pretending to be happy when you were simply existing."
"I wasn't just existing," he snapped, an anger bubbled at the surface that I knew wasn't for me, so I stared ahead at a screw in the wall. He stood up then. I peeked up from my peripheral vision to see him clenching his fists with his back to me. "It wasn't me. You don't know me."
I could almost hear him in my mind saying exactly how I felt about my own life, "I don't even know me."
Our stories weren't the same, and our hurts were not comparable, but we were both lost and trying to figure out who we were and what we wanted.
"Fuck, why am I even talking to you about this?" He slammed his fist into the wall with a thud. If someone was in the room behind the wall they probably would have come out, but most of the crew was at the lounge, like General Tensel explained.
There was this strong urge to tell William all about my own troubles within the silence stretching between us, but as a mom I'd learned that my job wasn't to unload my burdens, it was to listen and let my daughters process their own life. I smiled realizing that I may not have talked to them about what was bothering me, but they saw it, and when it mattered, they supported my choice to come here, even if they didn't know why I made the choices I did in my life.
That didn't matter, because I wouldn'thave changed them. Not when those choices gave me two wonderful daughters.
