Writing this chapter made me tear up. I wasn't prepared!
I know better than to go to the trees. If I go there someone will find me and I want to be alone for once. I can't think about me with other people latched onto my mind giving me their ideas of what I am like. I need to be the me that lives in my head right now, not Nanda-Elene-Reid's. And so I am walking toward the only place where wthat me really exists. I'm going home.
Desmond gave me access to the Old Earth terradome when I first arrived at Kiran, but I have been afraid to go. The Arboretum was familiar enough to make me feel safe, but different enough to make me feel new. Ever since waking up alone in Reid's bed I have been wondering if that is a bad thing. Focusing hasn't helped. Elene hasn't helped. Nanda won't talk to me about it and ended up doing the opposite of help. The door slides open and I inhale a familiar scent. A few steps in and I stop pretending that I am not sore. No one can see me, so I favor my left leg. I have done something to my hip, and everything else feels like it is on fire, too. I was prepared for this, and I expected the bruises based on Caroline's memories, but he bit me harder than he ever would have her. I am not sure what that means.
I run my fingers over the bruises on my collarbone, wincing at how hot and puffy the skin feels. My mind recalls his teeth on my skin, the low growl he made as he bit me, how my back arched and I clawed him in return. So that is what the Kiranese call catharsis. Or maybe not, since I feel worse than I did before he kissed me. But between falling asleep against him last night and waking up alone this morning, it did help.
I am used to terrible feelings. Living with my brothers and father on Old Earth was one terrible feeling after another. Not being allowed to go on hunts, not being allowed to help mama because father was home and did not want to see me. Villagers who would not speak to me because I was a half-breed. Mani stood up to them all, but when he died I had no one to help me. When I hit puberty and couldn't keep myself out of everyone else's minds, it became worse because I knew what they were thinking about me all the time.
I recognize most of what lives in here. No wonder it smells so familiar. In the center is a large tree they have labeled as a “willow,” but I have never heard anyone call it that. Mani and I used to play in one by the stream we gathered water at, and after he died it was where I would go to think. I liked to pretend that when I walked between its slender branches and sat pressed against the trunk that no one could see me. Now I find myself doing it again. There's moss under here, dryer than I am used to. They probably do that on purpose so people can sit here but stay clean. Everyone here is so obsessed with keeping their clothes clean, which makes no sense to me. The point of clothing is to keep the skin clean, so who cares if it is doing its job? If they'd just wear thicker clothing, it would be harder for it to become damp. Then again, I haven't worn my leathers in months. Maybe I am changing.
I lean back gingerly onto the ground, wincing as every muscle protests being put to use. The pain is a definite indicater that I have changed at least a little. When I came here, I never would have dreamed of doing what I did last night. Not just with Reid, but at all. I've even changed enough that I almost laughed at Nanda when I realized he was more upset Reid had seen my hair loose than he was that I had slept with him. I tangle my fingers in the coolness of the moss and shut my eyes, listening. The tree is moving. They must make false wind, too. I wonder what the point of that is.
Poor Nanda. The look on his face when I walked home this morning, barefoot, wearing Reid's shirt. I'd braided my hair in the dark. It was bad enough Reid and I kept him and Elene up all night, but to have walked in so obviously sexed was something I wish I had not done. He didn't want to believe that I wasn't seeded. Most of him is still waiting for me to come around, to decide he is what I need. He will not give up on me, and so when he was forced to see I had made a choice this morning, he took the last avenue he could and insisted Reid had forced himself on me. He pointed at bruises, he yelled, he shook me, and when I refused to admit I had been seeded he stormed off to find Reid, certain I was afraid to tell the truth.
I wish I had been able to lie. Waking up alone-not being able to find my shirt or shoes in the mess-walking home alone had been the most humiliating experience of my life. Last night was very important to me, and Reid made it clear he did not care, and now everyone knows because of Nanda. It is scary because I have never actually wanted to lie. I can count the number of times I have done so easily. Each time I did, it was to Desmond. To protect Reid. I do a lot of things I would never do for Reid.
My fingers tear into the moss, and I smell rich earth as it is exposed in angry dark trails. The last thing I want to do is become my mother. Her choices broke her. They made me. And when I was little I could never understand what possessed her to have an affair with a man of another planet, of another race, when she was surrounded by empaths, where it is impossible to keep actions secret.
“I was prepared for the consequences,” she told me quietly one night while we were fighting. Her eyes were always sad, tired. Aditi. No matter how many horrible things I said to her, she always forgave me and took me into her arms. This was one of those times.
“Did you love him, mama?” I'd asked. I asked this all the time, but she would never answer me. But that day she did. She sighed and ran her hand over my hair like Nanda always does. Both of them are good at comforting me. “I love him and I hate him, Asha-na.” She laughs after sensing my confusion. “I hope that never makes sense to you.”
It never did until I met Reid. I have never resented anyone as much as I resent him. I don't want him to have the sway over my emotions that he does, I don't want him to be able to make me feel as terrible as I feel now. Part of me wants to cry, but most of me wishes I would keep tearing at the moss. I won't, because I am acutely aware that this is fake, and so I should respect it as property. I wonder if Desmond would be proud of my restraint. I don't really care either way, right now.
There are footsteps on the path. No!
“Asha?”
My eyes open, and I see Reid standing above me. “I do not want to talk to you.”
“I don't want to talk.” There is something wrong with his face. He's sad and it has made half his cheek purple. No. Wait. I'm reading him. The discoloration is from when Nanda hit him. I feel suddenly stupid. He laughs, and I glare up at him. When he moves to sit next to me, I stand and try to move away.
“Asha, wait.”
“No!”
“Damnit, Asha! Stop making me fight you!” He reaches for my wrist.
“You are the one who did not want to be around me!” I snap, shoving his hand away. I expect him to grab me again like he always does, but he lowers his hands by his sides and stares at me. He's so sad that experiencing his emotion makes my stomach turn.
“I thought I had seeded you. Asha, I thought I had seeded you!”
I turn and stare at him in shock. “What?”
He grabs my arms and we fall to our knees together as he forces me to relive his thoughts and understand how he has felt all morning. By the end of it I am crying but he won't hug me he just keeps me pinned at the elbows until he is certain I understand.
“You would—you would never do that, Reid!”
He shakes his head. “I'd thought about it, Asha.” Saying the words out loud fills him with revulsion so thick I gag.
“That does not mean you would do it. Thoughts are only thoughts.”
He shakes me now, and I wince as his fingers dig into sore flesh and the bruises he left on me hours ago. The instant he feels the pain himself, he stops guiltily. “How can you be so accepting? I am not as good of a person as you seem to think!”
“Reid, why are you so afraid for people to know what you are thinking?”
Because then people would know who he really is.
“Thoughts do not make you who you are!”
He laughs at me. He thinks I am making no sense. I realize this is another one of those times where he is thinking like a non-empath. They rely too much on words and put too much weight on thoughts. There is no way I will ever be able to make him understand that I think he is a good person because his actions make him so. I don't care what he thinks or says. He cares. Even leaving me alone today was done because he cares. That realization makes me feel tired and safe. It is okay for me to feel like I do about Reid. It is okay for him to have a hold over me. I sigh and fold against him and he takes me into his arms.
“Your hair is a mess.”
“It was dark in your room.”
“Ah.” Guilt. “May I?” His fingers find the tie and linger uncertainly. I nod, and soon my hair is loose and he has his hands buried in my it, gently working out the tangles. Once he has it nice and soft again he begins to rebraid it with a surprising amount of dexterity. He ties it off again, and I instantly feel cleaner.
“Thank you.”
“It was making me guilty.” He picks me up and moves us back under the willow tree. We lie side-by-side on our backs, watching the branches sway in the mysteriously generated breeze.
“So, do you want to make this a thing?” he says eventually.
“Make what a thing?” My voice sounds sleepy.
“This. Us.”
“Us what thing?”
Reid sighs in exasperation. “Damnit, Asha, I know you understand Kiranese.”
“I am not used to the way you are using the word!”
He grabs my hand and makes me understand. I feel suddenly embarassed.
“Oh. Yes.”
“So do I. That's what worries me.”
“Why?”
He leans up on one shoulder and looks down at me. “I'm going to disappoint you.”
I laugh before I realize he is being serious. “What? Why?”
“I am not as good of a person as you seem to think I am.” His face is covered in fear.
“Reid...” I begin, but he shakes his head.
“No, Asha. I need to make you understand this.”
“I do. But I like you the way you are.”
He snorts. “What, broken?”
“You think I am not broken?” He is thinking of his father-mother-sister, I am thinking of my father, of Mani, and blue eyes. Our emotions are the same. He realizes this, and gives a little laugh. “So you know what you're getting yourself into?”
I lean my head against his chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart. It makes me sleepy. It makes me safe. “You do not need to change.”
He runs his hand over my hair, but he still has doubts. “I'm not going to quit being cranky, you know. And Bastian and Desmond hate me.”
“So?”
“This isn't going to be easy for you like Elene or Caroline's relationships are for them.”
“I do not care. You are worth it.”
“No, I'm not.”
“Can we please agree to disagree? You make me happy.”
He's silent for a moment. Then, he laughs. “Asha, that's pretty messed up.”
I smile, but don't reply. Eventually, Reid quietly closes himself off from me, and I conclude that very few things are going to change. At least he is honest.
Eventually a tired and worried-looking Elene finds us. “Asha?”
I call her name from under the tree branches, and soon she has found us.
“You know, I've never been in here,” she mutters, staring up at the tree's massive trunk.”
“I like it,” Reid replies. “There are no bugs.”
“How to the plants reproduce?” I ask, staring at a nearby flowering bush.
“The botanists do it with paintbrushes.”
Suddenly the dome feels too sterile. “Elene, is something wrong?”
“Nanda is looking for you.”
Reid rolls his eyes. “What, is he going to hit you now?”
Neither Elene nor I find that very funny. I rise from the moss and wipe my pants off gingerly. “Where is he?”
“Our room,” she replies, then ambles off to see the rest of the dome. Reid stares back and forth between us both and then collapses back onto the ground.
“Eh, message me later if you need me, okay Asha?”
I smile at him. He has never said that before. Elene makes a point of noticing either of us. I keep telling her that her attempts to give me privacy make me feel on display, but she does not stop.
The walk back to Hanakawa feels oddly long, and the dorm is too quiet when I enter. It hasn't been the same since Diane dropped out to look for her family full-time. I didn't like her, but she certainly made it more lively than it ever is now. My feet sound too loud on the steps, and I wonder if I am starting to walk like a Kiranese. Soon everyone will hear me coming.
“Nanda-ku, what is wrong?” He's lying on my bed, eyes closed, listening to a recording of a Midbaran flute player that sounds strangely familiar. Oh. It's me. When was I recorded? I reflexively try to find out from his mind, but he is withdrawn.
“Asha-na, we need to talk.”
“Oh, no. Are you going to yell at me again?”
He chuckles and beckons me over. “No, I'm not.”
“Good.” I try not to wince as I sit down on the bed beside him. The last thing he needs is another reminder.
“Do you miss your mother?” His voice is flat. The question is not at all what I was expecting, but with Nanda it never is. I lie back on my comforter and stare at my ceiling. “Yes, but we are both better off this way.”
He nods. “I was thinking about my family the other day. I haven't seen them in over a year.” His voice shakes. “And you know what? I thought, 'maybe I will write them and tell them how I have been.' But then it hits me that they can't read! No one in my village can! The fact that you could when we met, that was mind-blowing! And I had forgotten this.”
My mother had taught me. I think she was hoping a Recruiter would find me earier than one did. “Nanda-ku...” I begin, but he shakes his head.
“I can't go home, can I?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you've changed. I don't think you would be happy on Old Earth anymore, Nanda.”
“That is what I decided last night.” He turns and stares at me. “I tried not to change, you know. So that I could go back one day, if...well. But I absorbed it all, no matter how I tried not to, and now I don't belong anywhere.”
“Nanda, you could be happy here if you tried.”
“Eventually.” There is something in his tone I don't like.
“You know, the Recruiter is supposed to be in your village for another two years. If you sent him a letter, he could read it to your family.”
He shakes his head. “Do you really think they would understand?”
“I see what you mean.” His family didn't like me very much. I can only imagine how they would feel about their only son leaving the planet to follow me and then proving just how much he had changed by writing home.
“I was going to live there my whole life, you know. I wanted to get married.”
“To me.” Yet another reason why his family did not like me.
“Yes. When I left, I did it for you, because I knew you needed someone.”
“Are you blaming me?”
He runs his hand along my cheek, and suddenly I want to cry. “No, Asha-na. I am blaming me.”
My breath hitches. I don't want him to keep talking.
“Asha-na, I'm leaving.”
“What? No!” I sit upright so fast my vision goes spotty.
“You don't need me anymore.”
“I do! Yes, I do!” But he is shaking his head at me.
“No, you don't, and you know it. This is the only way you are ever really going to become independent.”
“But I want you here, Nanda!”
“Asha, that is not fair to me. I am miserable.” He says it quietly, but I feel like the words have hit me in the stomach. I start to cry and hate myself because it will make him guilty. Part of me wants to beg and sob and make him stay. It wouldn't be hard to do. If I asked him to, he wouldn't leave me.
“Nanda—“ I stop. No. That would not be fair to him. I remember the way he looked in the center of the crowd today when he realized he couldn't pretend any longer that he might have me one day. I can't keep doing that to him. I can't keep him near me without making him mine.
“But where will you go?” I borrow a trick from Caroline and keep my voice light even though I feel like I am drowning.
“One of the Midbaran half-breeds has managed to keep his trade business going with our help. I went to see him today, after—and we got to talking. He's offered me a spot in his business when he leaves for Oceanus to set up a new shop.”
Oceanus. Better than Newearth, at least. Elene will be happy. “When?” I can barely force the word out.
“Three days. I've already spoken to my Teacher. He's working on discharging me.”
“It was that easy?”
He laughs. “Asha-na, next to you I am useless to them. Of course it was that easy.”
I fall back against the bed again. There is nothing more to say. I listen to myself play through several more songs before Nanda speaks.
“Do you want me to keep in contact?”
“Of course. Nanda, you saved my life. You're my best friend.”
He sighs. “I am sorry that is not enough for me.”
“Don't say that. I want you to be happy.”
“Thank you,” he murmurs after another pause.
“For what?”
“For not asking me to stay.”
We are silent after this. I can't stop thinking about the catskin and my scar, two pieces of the darkest two days of my life. When the great cat leapt at me from the underbrush, I was not prepared. I can sense animals, but my mind was dwelling on my father and the lingering pain in my ribs he had left me. Instinct took over and I tumbled backward as her claws swiped at my throat and missed my major vein. I've never been in so much pain. If my knife hadn't already been out I would have fainted without hurting her, and that would have been the end. But as we fell the knife came up, hit where she had missed. We landed in a pool of our blood, and as my consciousness faded I felt her die in my arms.
By the time I was myself again I had lost too much blood to shove her off me. The ground around us was sticky and wet. The smell of iron filled my nose and made it impossible to smell anything else and all I could think of was the paddock floor after the horses killed Mani. How Nanda's hunting party stumbled upon me before the carrion eaters did is something I will never know. He carried me back to his village while I was unconscious and washed my wounds and helped me fight off death. He did not care that my eyes were blue or my hair was slightly too pale. If the universe made sense I would love him for what he has done for me. I should love him. But I can't.
I don't start crying until he has left me alone in the room.
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