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 felt 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 15
I always loved traveling, and had thought that if Sophie had asked me to go with her on her mission through the universe, it would be an enthusiastic yes.
Since Halapatov however, I’ve been afraid. Even if she came back now and asked me to travel the stars beside her, I don't think I'd have the guts. It sort of feels like the whole concept of leaving home has been poisoned for me. After what happened with Riowyn… Well, I haven’t even left my village since Sophie brought me home. The universe has lost its spark for me.
Not that I should be thinking about Sophie; I know now that that is just asking for trouble. I’ll wake in the middle of the night and forget that she’s gone, reach out and find only an empty room. She left so abruptly, and abandoned so many small things in my house and I’ve found myself welling up with tears as I stumble upon a scrap of paper with her writing, or a half finished gadget, or even just open the cupboard missing the duffel bag she took with her. I am furious with her, I am worried to death about her. In my worst moments, I can’t shake that crazed look in her eyes on the hill that day, regress into the panic I felt as I begged her not to leave me, and in that state I feel sure that she is dead on some planet out there, and I will never see her again, never even learn her fate. For the first days, weeks, I had the hope in the back of my head that she would snap out of it and come back to me, that we would work through everything together, but so much time has passed now that I feel convinced that either she is gone or I don’t matter enough for her to come back to.
That thought stings more than anything else; but really I have gotten really good at not thinking it. I have other things to worry about, I have a life outside of her, I will be studying at a healing centre in a few years, and the Weraynian war could start at any moment, and I have my family’s business to help with, and other friends here on Flauraan. It helps that no one knows about what happened between us except Reeina, no one really has any reason to think that there’s anything wrong. And I’m glad for that. Even if I’ve lost Sophie, not that long after losing Leila, well, good riddance. I don’t need them, and I certainly don’t care about their absence anymore.
That’s what I convince myself on the good days, in any case.
Still, I have this aversion to traveling now, and though I feel like that will be hard to dismantle in its entirety, my first hurdle is facing a trip outside of my town, to the local city, a challenge brought to me by my friend Sierra at the learning centre one day.
“So Abigail, I know you've been looking into studying healing. I have too. There's so much to learn! It's enthralling.”
“Oh, that's really cool Sierra!” I say, genuinely excited at the thought of a shared interest with a friend.
“In a couple of weeks there's a two day conference in the city on healing; new medical technologies, pharmacology and so on.” Sierra informs me, smiling disarmingly. “We should go together, it could be fun.”
I am paralysed for a moment. I’ve always liked Sierra, always wanted to be closer to her since we were kids. We weren’t friends for a long time due to the incident with my powers as children, but since reconnecting she’s always taken a special interest in me, though we’ve mostly spent time together in group settings. She’s right, it would be nice for us to go on this trip together, nervous as it might make me to even think about the concept. It’s hard for me to defy the logic of it, the conference being related to healing studies and all. After all, I can’t spend all my time stewing at home in my feelings of doom and gloom about the war and - well, the war is the thing I can do something about. She is asking me so earnestly too, and the twist in my gut isn’t enough to dissuade me entirely.
“Let’s look into it,” I say, and sure enough, a few weeks later we are taking public transport to the city - not that it is a big city by any means, certainly not as elaborate as any I saw on Halapatov, or even the one my brother lives in, simply bigger than our small farming village - where their largest healing centre is holding a two day conference in its attached study hall, almost as an orientation to healing with a variety of interesting topics and technologies to draw in potential students. I am especially interested in the different medicines my people and the Halapatovians have been able to derive from plants, fungi and microorganisms, and their efficacy with the differing physiologies our system has. It’s hard for me to conceptualise the future at the moment, but it’s almost a dream to imagine Sierra and I attending here when we turn 16, maybe commuting from the village or even staying in a dorm for extended visits. We get to stay in one of the dorms for the one night we are here, a room with a double bed, which Sierra organised and asked very sweetly if I was comfortable sharing with her. I agreed to it without fuss, even though I’ve only ever shared a bed with…
Well, in the spirit of a resilient future, it’s a good idea to open myself to the possibility of sleepovers with new people. Sierra is an old friend, and incredibly smart and considerate and pretty. We’ve had such a nice day too. She hangs onto my arm as we are shown around the healing centre’s facilities, and after a long presentation at the end of the day where we take laborious notes, she leans on me with a tired affection. I smile down at her profile, and focus on her hair tightly braided into two plaits. I absentmindedly fiddle with one of them, and she catches a hold of my hand and kisses it.
Suddenly everything changes. My brain switches on and I am interpreting everything in a new light, and the way Sierra has acted since we became friends again makes a lot of sense if she is also attracted to me. There’s been a bit of relationship talk in my life lately, especially with Runer and Jayne having started dating a few weeks ago, and I know from group discussions that Sierra has kissed a few people before. I’ve never had much experience with flirting or dating or any of it, but this feels different to any friendship I’ve had before.
She is still holding onto my hand. I am trying not to tremble. “Is this okay?” she asks, and she is so beautiful, so considerate, so straightforward, nothing at all like- okay, it’s not helpful to make any comparisons. I’ve obviously been a bit distracted ever since the Weraynian scare, and just generally have been pretty isolated and not really thought about crushes or dating. But of course it’s something that I want. I’m Paladanian, and have known I’ve been attracted to women since puberty. I wasn’t expecting this right now, here on this trip, Paladanian flaw and all, but Sierra is definitely the sort of person I could see myself with. Everything is very nice and easy between us. So I respond sincerely, “Of course.”
She smiles widely at me and lifts her head off of my shoulder. “Let’s go have dinner,”
We eat in the healing centre’s cafeteria, the food only slightly different to the sort of thing we have at home. We are chatting and laughing and talking about our highlights of the day, and only a small part of me is terrified that I don’t even know what I have agreed to. Sierra grips tightly to my hand as we go back to our room, and I have no idea what to expect, how to navigate anything, but nonetheless my heart is racing at the possibilities.
I decide to follow her lead, as she has the more experience. She sits down on the bed and loosens her collar, then takes my hands in hers. It’s nice to have someone new to associate with hand holding.
Sierra looks at me, eyes flirtatious in a way that is new to me. I can’t help myself from looking at her lips; she notices and laughs at me, but it’s not mean. I feel a bit like a bumbling idiot, but it’s a nice feeling. It only gets better when she kisses me. It’s different to what I was expecting. She moves from gripping my hands and caresses her fingers up my arms as I lean in for a second, before our lips part again. I feel like I’m breathing heavier than I should be.
“This is nice.” she says, and I nod wordlessly, nervous system alight. “I’m glad you joined me for this.”
Glad is an understatement for me right now. I’m a little overwhelmed by it all, but I do my best to make my voice more flirtatious, almost seductive. “Yes, this has been a nice conference.”
She smirks at me and we are co-conspirators. “So you want to go over our notes now?” She is teasing me, I know, but the thought almost makes me wince.
“If you don’t have anything else in mind.” I say, absurdly cooler than I have any right to be.
“I’m sure I can think of something.” Her arms are tracing the sleeves of my tunic, and I figure I have the guts to go a little further. I tug the tunic over my head, and Sierra regards me thoughtfully. I’m barely even self conscious. She unbuckles her belt, unbuttons her shirt to expose bare flesh, and then half kneels on the bed beside me.
As she is tracing kisses down my neck and collarbone I say breathily, without thinking, “I've never done this before.”
She glances sharply up at me. “Huh, really?” I stare down at her, equally confused. “Do you want to stop?”
“No!” I say a bit frantically, and lean down and kiss her again, roughly this time.
She responds enthusiastically, hand reaching for my chest as we shift together on the bed. I wrap my arms around her and we roll, and it’s all a bit awkward as we shift and she discards more items of clothing. I end up laying on the bed as she straddles me. I stare up at her and notice that her braids are still perfect. I wonder how messy I look right now. She presses down on me, we kiss more and I let her tongue into my mouth. It’s all electrifying, and by the time we get tired and stop it’s not hard for me to drift into a dreamless, worryless sleep for the first time in a while.
I open my eyes to the unfamiliar room, and I am uncharacteristically confused. There is a body in the bed next to me, and I reach out and softly say, “Sophie…”
I immediately feel a rush of horror as I remember that not only is that definitely not Sophie, but Sophie is gone forever. How many nights have I slept in the same room as her, to have my brain wired like this? I spend one night with another girl and yet I can't get rid of the feeling that it's her I should be waking up next to. I hope that Sierra didn't hear me, humiliated enough by my own pathetic slip of the tongue, but then she rolls over and looks at me with such an expression of pity that I want to tear off all of my skin and hide in it.
“Sierra, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-”
“Aw sweetheart,” She props herself up on one arm and runs the other hand through my hair. “You're really hurting huh? I should have known that you two had something going on.”
“We don't!” I say in panic. “I mean we never- she is- was my friend.”
She raises her eyebrows at me and I realise how stupid I sound. “She's gone, anyway. I just associate sleepovers with her.”
“Gone?” Sierra inquires. It is incredible how much I don't want to talk about this.
“It doesn't matter. I just- I'm really sorry. I don't want you to feel like I was leading you on or anything. I really enjoyed being with you.”
Sierra squeezes my cheek and sits up properly. “Don't be silly! This whole trip has been so nice. Don't worry, I don't regret anything.”
I smile gratefully at her, the pit in my stomach diminishing ever so slightly.
“Come on,” she says, pushing me teasingly. “Let's get ready, still more to do today,”
That evening, after the bus drops us at the main junction in our village, we say goodbye before going our separate ways. We'd had a fun day, with more activities and studies at the healing centre to take our attention but it couldn't erase that feeling of awkwardness, like I'd fumbled something really special. Sierra can clearly sense the angst I’m feeling. She embraces me in the dark and I sink into her.
“Thank you for everything.” I say stiffly, heart burning.
“Don't mention it.” She says affectionately. “I'll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.”
As I start to head off, she calls, softly, “Abigail? I hope she comes back.”
I am startled, ashamed, afraid. I feel exposed and vulnerable. “Me too.” I choke out pathetically.
Sierra gives me a wave and says, “Well, if you ever want someone to kiss, I'm always here for you. See you!”
I blush furiously as she disappears into the night. I almost want to run after her, grab her hand, beg her, “Kiss me now!” And promise her that I'm not a freak, pining after someone who's gone. That I can be here and live a normal life and date her and there's nothing holding me back anymore.
Instead I trudge back home to bed and dream of drawing star charts with Leila.
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.