Page 65 of Sunastara & the Venusian
After a moment, he said,
My jaw clenched. I swallowed down the lump rising viciously up my throat.
he said, suddenly deadly serious.
My heart battered my ribs until they felt bruised, mymouth going dry, my fingers tingling, panic surging inside my chest.
Shock snapped through his voice, but there was a darkness in it too. Something I’d never heard from him before. I thought it was anger.
Stars, I shouldn’t have asked. Because it didn’t matter who Serena was. Because there was no conceivable reality in which I’d be able to sit and listen while he told me about this other being he had feelings for. I couldn’t hear it. Refused to hear it. He couldn’t tell me how he loved someone else. Because I was in love with him.
Somehow, despite our deal, despite how careful I’d tried to be, despite everything, I’d fallen in love with him. Not like. Not infatuation—even though, if I was being honest, there was a bit of that too. But love. Foolish, terrible, inevitable love. I already knew it was, but I couldn’t hear it from him that my love was a mistake.
I commed.
He responded quickly with and a fresh wave of pain rolled over me at the desperation in the words.
Grinding the heel of my palm into my sternum, trying to make it hurt as much on the outside as it did beneath my ribs, I said,
There was only silence on his end of the comm.
I said.
When he uttered a single, agonized another tear slipped down my cheek.
Imanaged, somehow keeping my voice steady while I swiped the tear away.
His voice broke.
I clicked off the comm, my eyes drying, my shoulders sinking, my chest cold and empty and caving in on itself. It was awful. Everything hurt. But it was done.
26
Avoiding Freddie would be difficult,but not impossible. We had a staff meeting first thing, and then I’d spend the rest of the day preparing for the arrival of the FFKs. I could easily keep myself busy staging the Kravaxians’ rooms and stocking their refrigerators and minibars with their requested snacks and beverages—gelatinized trestal eggs, dried gwarfs, crater eel jerky, and,oddly, fruit punch.
I knew I couldn’t stay away from him forever, but I couldn’t bear to speak to him or have anything explained to me or be forced to explain anything back. Not for the next few days.
Elanie snapped into my VC.
I replied, chipper, trying to sound like I wasn’t a walking, talking bruised heart.
she replied.
The comm went silent for a few seconds—millennia for a bionic—and then she said an understated, and far too understanding,
When I walked into the staff room, my plan was to smile genially at everyone around the table, take a seat, zone out during the meeting, and be the first one out the door. But then I saw him. Only someone born without a heart could have smiled. And the sharp ache piercing my chest was proof enough of mine.
He sat hunched forward, his face pale, his eyes sunken and rimmed in red.
he commed, sounding as tortured as he looked, as tortured as I felt.
It wasn’t fair. His sunken eyes, his pleading gaze. I shouldn’t have to feel sorry for him. I’d asked for space. I needed time. I had things to do, important things. I was at work.
I replied evenly while taking my seat, the one closest to the door, keeping my eyes on my hands in my lap.
