Enceladus

“Do you want to talk about last night?”

Lainie chewed on her lower lip. “My mom. She um . . . she had breast cancer. I knew it was coming but it was still a shock when I got the news.”

“I’m so sorry.” I put my hand on her arm. “What about your dad?”

“Oh, we were never close. He left mom and I when I was young.” There was anger in her beautiful brown eyes. That in turn made me angry. Who would ever leave a girl like this?

I brought her in for a comforting hug. We broke apart.

“Where are your parents?” Lainie asked me.

I’d never had to lie about my parents before. “They live in Alaska, where I’m from.” Live, live. They’re dead, Amy.

“Oh, that’s amazing. What made you leave?”

I thought about it for a second. “They were too oppressive.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. Vela was suffocating. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about her death. I couldn’t care less about Orion though.

“Oh, that’s too bad. Did you have any siblings?”

I nodded. “Four actually. We all went our separate ways.”

“Thank you again for letting me stay here.” She sipped her tea.

“Anytime. I’m going to shower.” I kissed her on the forehead and watched her cheeks turn red.

Lainie and I spent the whole day together. First we went to breakfast at my work, then we walked around a shopping center near the café. For lunch, we stopped at a fast food restaurant where I had my first bacon lettuce. We didn’t have pigs on Enceladus.

“Bacon, lettuce, tomato or BLT,” Lainie told me when I butchered the name.

After lunch, Lainie bought herself a cute new pea coat, of which she apparently had a lot. Then we went back to my place to study French.

“My name is Lainie. What’s that in French?” I asked her.

Her brows furrowed. “Uh . . . Je m’ap-”

“M’appelle,” I supplied.

“Je m’apelle Lainie.”

“Good. Tell me it’s Tuesday.”

“C’est?” I nodded and she continued. “Mardi. C’est mardi.”

“See! You’re getting it. It’s not as hard as you thought, huh?”

“Guess not.” She chuckled.

“You’re doing well.”

She squealed and my chest warmed. “Thank you, thank you.” She rounded the table and hugged me. I leaned into the hug and it suddenly occurred to me how long I’d gone without contact from another being. I hadn’t hugged someone since I left Enceladus eight years ago.

During psych that evening, I couldn’t stop thinking about my family. They were in the middle of a war and I was studying at a university on Earth. Sure, none of them had been kind to me. Sure, I’d had a horrible, miserable life there but Enceladus was thrown into a world war. Could I really leave them to figure it out on their own?

Who was I if I just left them to fend for themselves? I guessed I didn’t really know the answer to that question. I wasn’t Enceladian, as my family had made sure to tell me, and I wasn’t human. Where did that leave me, I wondered.

“Amy,” the professor said, bringing me back to attention. “In the case you all read last night, the girl was diagnosed with abandonment issues when neither one of her parents actually left her. Why do you think she was diagnosed with that?”

I exhaled. “Well as I read, her parents were abusive. They were insulting and cruel. Fear of abandonment doesn’t just stem from literal abandonment. It can also result from neglect emotionally and physically. From her point of view, her father didn’t think of her as his daughter. The girl’s mother never loved her for herself. The mother tried to mold the girl after herself. I think that after so long of feeling like your parents don’t want you, there comes a time when you meet someone new and you desperately want them to like you, to never leave you the way your parents metaphorically did. And there sprouts the issues. Even though that girl’s parents didn’t leave her physically, she felt alone and alienated her whole life. She felt like they had abandoned her long ago.”

There was a beat of silence. “Well said.”

I felt myself slipping into another flashback but I stayed away because I knew what it would be about.

I was that girl in the case.

I was pretty sure I knew the answer to my earlier question. Yes, yes I could leave the Enceladians alone. And if that made me a heartless person who turned her back on her own species, then so be it. Everybody knew how I had been treated as a child. The servants, the citizens, my siblings and not one of them ever stood up for me.

After class, I went home and collapsed on my bed. I was tired. Not physically but emotionally, mentally. Not only was I taking four classes but I had a new relationship, my parents were dead and my home planet was in turmoil.

I’d gone years of peaceful silence from Enceladus. Years of being someone else. Years of blending in to human society. Now I didn’t think I could ignore it.

Two weeks and three dates with Lainie later, we had our first exam in French. Lainie was freaking out. We were driving to school and I could practically feel her nerves.

“Hun, it’ll be okay. You are totally ready for this test.”

“Mmm,” she said absentmindedly.

“You must have serious test anxiety, huh?”

She nodded and resumed chewing on her nails.

“You’ll do great.” I reached over and put my hand on her knee which got her leg to stop shaking. “Promise.”

We got to school and headed to class. Our professor handed out the tests and I watched as Lainie became wide-eyed. She looked up at me and I gave her an encouraging smile.

“Begin.”

The trainer shouted, “Begin,” and Caelum started advancing.

I was petrified. It was my first fight with anyone other than Lynx. When the trainer said I could go against my older brother, I hesitated. It was Lynx who told me I was ready. I didn’t believe him, especially since I was seventy-eight and Cal was 298. He had graduated training (which including wings and abilities) school and I was still enrolled in it as well as general education.

Cal circled me and I gulped. He was so much bigger than me. How was I going to live through this?

Before I knew it, he was punching me in the stomach. I straightened and he threw a punch at my head which I effectively dodged. I didn’t get out of the way in time for his shoulder to come into contact with my torso. I grunted and fell to the ground.

Cal stood over me grinning. It angered me. I swiped my foot under his legs and he fell. That angered him. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. He came at me again after we’d both stood and I scrambled out of his way. He pivoted back and this time I got him. A direct punch to the nose. He swore and covered his face. When he moved his hands, there was blood. I stumbled back in shock.

He spat the blood on the ground and snarled. I knew there was no winning this.

Caelum came running as fast as a fëb. I froze. He tackled me to the ground and wrapped his arm around my neck. What I didn’t expect him to do was squeeze. I grasped at his muscled arm. I tried to tell him to stop but he was squeezing too hard. I slapped his arm repeatedly until I was gasping, my vision blurring.

“Caelum! Ešt bü fëŵ tô zü våĉåš?”

Caelum let go of me and I inhaled roughly. Lynx rushed to my side. “Are you okay, Amelia?” His hands roamed my face, trying to comfort me. “Nïx.” He then looked to Cal. “What is wrong with you? She’s a child! Get out of here.”

Cal stumbled away, stunned for some reason.

“You’re fired,” Lynx told the trainer.

“Your-Your Highness, I apolo-”

“Go.”

Then I cried.

I blinked once. Twice. Then looked at the clock. I had wasted twenty minutes of class. I began the test, blocking out the flashback.

Lainie ended up passing the test with an A, just like I knew she would.

“What’s wrong?” she asked me as we got in my car. “You passed too.”

“My parents died,” I blurted.

“What? When?”

“Two weeks ago.”

I couldn’t look at Lainie but I heard her sharp intake of breath. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

“That’s insane. Why would it not be important?”

“I hated them. They hated me.”

“Amy . . .”

Her tone had me meeting her eyes.

“I’m so sorry.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay.”

“Even if you hated them, they were still your parents. They still birthed you and raised you.”

I shrugged but my eyes watered. Maybe their deaths were hitting me more than I let on. “Want to get some lunch?”

She didn’t respond so I turned my head. She was looking at me in sympathy. There was a time when I would’ve given anything to have someone’s sympathy on Enceladus. Anyone’s. But now I didn’t want or need sympathy. I could save myself and I didn’t need to be understood.

That sounds harsh. Luckily Lainie can’t hear my thoughts.

I started the car.

“I want chicken,” Lainie informed me.

So I drove to her favorite chicken place. We rode in silence until I couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m sorry, Lainie. I just have unresolved issues with my family. I guess now that my parents are dead, I can’t really confront them about the way they treated me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“I understand, Amy. My father was horrible as well. I remember my mom screaming at him over the phone. Telling him to come visit his daughter. You and I still have a long way to go. There’s stuff I don’t know about you and stuff you don’t know about me. But I can’t wait to know it all.”

I smiled and grabbed her hand.

I would never be able to tell off Orion or Vela. I would never be able to tell them how much they messed me up. They drove me to run away to a foreign planet. I just wished I could’ve explained to them exactly why. They should’ve known what pain they caused. Sadly, they never would.

I only took comfort from my siblings still being alive.

At the restaurant, we ran into John, my colleague from work.

“Hey, Amy.”

“John, hey, how are you?”

“I am doing well. And you?” John was an enigma. I always thought he looked familiar to me but I first met him when I started working at the café. For a human male, he was surprisingly attractive, almost otherworldly. For a while, I was overly suspicious of him. I thought he was an alien. I dismissed that idea though.

“Good. John, this is my girlfriend, Lainie.”

“Nice to meet you, Lainie.”

Lainie shook his hand but was looking at me like I had four eyes, like the people of Tarvos. I then realized what I did. I had called her my girlfriend for the first time.

“Do you work tomorrow?”

I cleared my throat, feeling rather hot. “I do.”

“I will see you then.” John walked off.

Lainie didn’t say anything until we were seated. “Girlfriend, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” I rushed out. “It was just what came to mind first. We don’t have to label anything until-”

Lainie was laughing lightly. “Amy, chill. I would love to be your girlfriend.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

I grinned like an idiot and leaned across the table for a kiss.