Flauraan, Abigail is 16, Sophie is 18

I find myself staring at all the notes and research littering the table with a hollow feeling in my chest. All of these options, all of this potential, all these futures Sophie has available for her; it’s all too immense. She sits across from me with her eyes shining, and the problem is that I can see all of these plans for her, I can see her living all those lives, but every last one of them is so far away from me. Not that it would change that much about our situation; for almost three years now Sophie and I have been friends long distance. For a long time of that I didn’t know if I’d ever see her again, yet now I had at least the surety that she wouldn’t intentionally disappear from my life forever. We are able to steal precious weeks at a time for sleepovers and adventures and stupid conversations. She is the most important thing in my life. She is a creature of light, especially when without her my thoughts are clouded by thoughts of doom, of the Weraynian war. I stare at the notes and almost feel sick. How could I be thinking these things? How could I begrudge her the exciting life she led? How could I selfishly, foolishly, contemptibly, long for her to sweep all these other options off of the table and choose me?

So when she asks me, for the hundredth time, “So what do you think I should do?”, I hesitate for a moment, the only real answer I have threatening to stumble past my lips. I give a noncommittal shrug and make an erudite observation about the comparative appeal of this or that experience, and as she follows the path of my finger to one of the notes with interest I resist the urge to grab her by the wrists and implore her, Sophie, stay with me. Please. I want you to stay.

Flauraan, Abigail is 16, Sophie is 18

So we’ve reached the end of another few weeks together, hopefully far from our last. Abi has kindly indulged my silly quest for a real big girl career, some new task to give my life some sort of direction. Ultimately, we came to no conclusions. I can’t really say I’m too bothered by that. This was, after all, a thinly veiled excuse to visit her. Being with Abigail for any length of time makes me feel like my life hasn’t been an utter waste. From the moment I teleport into Flauraan’s atmosphere and take my first breath, I am immediately treasuring the chance simply to be breathing the same air as her. I don’t know where I’d be without her.

I wonder if she knows; what a pathetic mess I really am. I mean, of course she does, she knows everything. But sometimes I get this feeling of guilt when she looks at me, like she sees a better person than I deserve to be seen as. I have spent the many months since I found dad’s expedition being treated as a hero, and maybe I am, I don’t know. It doesn’t all feel very heroic. Since my purpose in life, my reason for utter and complete drivenness and focus, has fallen away and left the rest of me a gaping void, I can’t help but contemplate the creature I have become, through years of running away from any problem I had as if it would solve things.

The thought of self-loathing that gnaws at me the most is that it is a miracle I am here with Abigail at all, that she has allowed me back into her presence after all I have put her through. She escorts me to the hill to say goodbye, with my half-hearted plan to look into spaceport work, and all I can think of is the time we were on this hill and I hurt her. Where she grabbed onto me and begged and pleaded; “You don’t have to do this. Please, stay.” and I wrenched myself away from her. And I left her. And she didn’t even know if I would be okay. If I would survive. And even though I’d promised her I’d come back to her, for a long time I stayed away, out of guilt and fear and shame. Believing I didn’t deserve her friendship or loyalty. But once I realised what an idiot I’d been, I went back to Abigail and she forgave me and she understood that I was wrecked and blasted and damned and maybe I could pull myself back together now and be a real person.

The guilt is still there though. Saying goodbye to her always feels like a betrayal. I can hardly stand it. My stance now is that she runs the show. That’s why I’m here at all, I need her to know that I’m not going anywhere or doing anything without her knowing about it. I need her to know what she means to me. I probably haven’t done a great job of that.

All I know is, if she asked me to stay, if she’d let me live here on Flauraan with her, I’d drop everything else in a heartbeat. I could spend every day by her side, taking care of her, planning things for her. I kind of can’t imagine anything better than that.

And yet we still go through the routine, the setting of the teleport watch, the going over of last minute details, the drawing out the goodbye, and then she hugs me and I can feel her heart beating and I almost lose all resolve and beg her myself, Please, Abigail, ask me to stay. I let you down last time but this time I will be there for you. But of course I know she’d never trust me for that, never want that from me, not anymore, even if she’s long forgiven me. I pull back from the hug, loosen my grip on her hands and teleport away with a final goodbye, but not without leaving a part of myself behind in the process.

Like always.