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“Say hi to everyone for me,” she replied brightly. But the shadows under her eyes were deeper, and her exuberance rang false. “Oh and, JayJay, bring your pants by anytime. I’ll patch them.”
Tipping my head, I waved goodbye, but inside, I hummed happily over the excuse to return.
4
The sun, high overhead,glinted through small round windows beneath the roofline. My baking eyelids flickered open, searching for relief. Forced awake, I lurched like Igor to the washroom.
The bitter residue of medicine lingered on my tongue, and I counted like I did every morning. Ten full packs. 105 pills remained. I’d brought enough for six months, double what I would need. Everything’s fine.
“Ugh…” I muttered to my reflection. “You look like shit.” A foil packet fell to the floor, where the heated concrete warmed my toes. I groaned, every muscle protesting as I bent, picked it up,and swallowed down a tablet. First the hoverbike lessons, then yesterday’s hunting trip—I’d been putting my body through the wringer.
My head dipped toward the monitoring app, stretching my taut neck. A dab of tiger balm would help. My nostrils flared when the eye-burning camphor filled the small bathroom. Hot tingles began to ease my achy muscles. As I massaged, I watched the heart icons blip while my heart rate slowed to normal.
This time, when I looked in the mirror, I smiled and threw in a couple of affirmations for good measure. My mental medicine. “I love myself.” I stuck out my tongue and made googly eyes. “I’m the master of my destiny.” I pumped my fist in the air. “I’m exactly enough, just as I am, no changes required.”
JayJay’s rumbling voice echoed in my thoughts. Rare hazel eyes. Gold like a jungle cat’s. Green as his favorite swimming hole. The brown shimmers like the fine whiskey on Yagras. Despite enjoying the heat gathering in my stomach, I brushed his words away. Though I particularly liked the jungle cat reference, I wouldn’t mistake it for a compliment. He would’ve said the same thing to anyone with hazel eyes.
But my inner voice liked to play devil’s advocate, and she quickly trumped my self-love with negative self-talk.You’re thirty-three years old and you’ve never been able to accept a compliment that wasn’t work-related. And you wonder why every relationship you’ve been in has tanked. What’s wrong with you? Just accept the fact that the guy likes your eyes, geesh.
Charz and Pika’s nails skidded over the heated concrete floors when I cracked the freezer door open and shuffled through the shiny-lidded contents. Makir had prepared so many meals that I questioned whether he and Geo actually planned to return from Lorne.
As I lifted frozen containers, I wondered why I guarded my independence so closely. Why was it so damn hard to let people in? But deep down, I knew exactly why I was the way I was. My parents were research scientists who’d spent all their time at the mercy of scheduled lab analysis, working against the clock for breakthroughs to ensure funding. A memory of my sixteenth birthday hurtled to the surface of my thoughts.
I threw my keys on the kitchen counter like I did every day after school and walked to the fridge. My socks squished in something wet and sticky as my eyes tracked the source. What was left of an ice cream cake—just the cardboard base—sat congealed in oily purple and yellow icing, muddied to a swampy brown no one would put in their mouth. I swallowed down the lump building in my throat and ran a dishcloth under the water. Three soggy tickets to Playland, an indoor amusement park I hadn’t been to since I was nine, washed into the sink as I scraped the vanilla-scented sludge off the counter. With my fists pressed to my eyes, I took a personal-sized pizza from the freezer and willed the empty notification bubble on my phone’s screen to fill.
A cold blast of air from Makir’s freezer returned me to the present. It was best I got over my damn self, and quick, because one thing was for certain—this sickness was stealing my ability to rely on myself.
I reheated a delicious mantu soup with graneth seed, uncannily similar to the beef and barley Geo used to make on Earth, and inhaled it. Then, remembering my greens, I added a handful to a second helping. While I sipped from a pink earthenware mug, I used my last linobee hide to craft YimYim’s mittens. I’d have to hang the furs I’d prepped last night with JayJay in Makir’s hovery to cure in a couple of days.
“Yes, yes, I know…” I sing-songed, petting the tops of two ecstatic heads. Charz and Pika jumped up at my legs while I hurried to attach their leashes. “We’re going to deliver YimYim’s mittens. Yes, we are!”
My tall brown boots slipped over my calves like a second skin, and I grabbed the mittens from the table before tripping through the arched front entry in a tangle of paws. Despite the cold air biting my cheeks from the brisk wind, I paused to gaze at the skyline. The horizon purpled as twilight melted a red sun into the blue snow. The dogs’ growing impatience urged me forward through the sharp crust. With each step, snow crunched underfoot.
A Lizzard, a species I hadn’t interacted with, eyeballed Geo’s dogs, and I shortened their leashes. He lifted his crocodile-shaped head toward me for just a second before rushing off. His tail, which appeared to be covered in something similar to leg warmers, left a wide trail in the snow. Hmmm…was that Makir’s creepy neighbor? The one Geo had evicted after he’d threatened Makir?
Lawn mower-like laughs in the distance broke the uncomfortable silence. Despite having their volume dialed to max all the time, Rock Dwellers were my favorite of all the species I’d met, closely followed by the one Lornian inhabiting Tern. Something about their gigantic presence filled a void inside of me. The blend of calm, fun-loving and hardworking spoke to me in so many ways. My parents had loved me in their own way, but nurturing and fun-loving were not qualities in their wheelhouse. One thing they had driven home was a strong work ethic—career first, social life second.
The one exception was JayJay. Although Geo had told me time and time again, “he’s a great guy, hilarious, totally laid back, best foreman ever,”I didn’t see it. To me, his domineering personality and clumsy caretaking floundered in the gray zone between rude and awkward.
But in spite of his loud voice startling me at every turn, he made me feel safe.
After we’d returned from the hunt, he’d sat by my side and helped me strip every fur. He’d even shown me how Rock Dwellers used astringent javae grounds to dry and soften the skins in days instead of weeks. He’d been calm and patient, and as the evening progressed, the prominent ridge that lined his forehead had softened until it lay flat. I’d found myself wondering if his skin would feel like satin if I ran a finger over his smooth head.
We hadn’t argued once.
I exhaled, officially pooped by the time I reached the Rock Dweller sono. As the species responsible for building Tern’s beautiful homes, the sono looked the opposite of what you would expect. Slapdash and drafty, it wasn’t much warmer in here than outside.
Never one to pass up a dramatic entrance, I flung the door open. “Special delivery,” I cried, alerting everyone to my presence. The roar of boisterous greetings, arm-jarring punches and offers of food confirmed my place among these giants.
TeyTey and Sully were visiting with their sons. They yelped when Charz and Pika found them and were soon wrestling on the floor. Unsurprised by their lack of interest in new mittens, I passed them off to Mom for safekeeping and received a warm embrace in return.
Sannit, the youngest Rock Dweller on Geo’s crew, chewed on the end of a pencil as he pulled out a roughly built chair. Healways seemed to have something in his mouth. “We saved you a spot.”
Five Rock Dwellers grinned at me, and some raised their mugs of orzfoam.
“We’re just about to start a new game.” Tino dealt me in, the cards dwarfing my hands. “Now, none of that funny business, little Earthling.” He shook one of his three fingers at me, and I admired the flames he had tattooed around his head.
“What?” I forced my eyes wide. “I can’t help that you’re all giants and choose to hold your hands right at my eye level. Nice art, by the way, but I liked the tree better.”
