The conviction made Milo smile a little, just as the vehicle pulled up to their building.
Rowan took Milo’s hand. “Wewillfigure this out.”
The same conviction with those words didn’t have the same effect as the others. Milo pulled his hand away. “What is there to figure out unless you are willing to go against what Director Andreas ordered?”
Rowan stared with no answer forthcoming.
“You’re not, are you? You think yourself too small to fight him, so you won’t even try. Not even for me.” Before Rowan could answer, Milo opened his door and leaped out.
“Milo!”
He continued at a rapid pace. It was freeing to not have to listen when called for, to not listen to orders should Rowan give him any, but it was also isolating because he couldn’t bear forhim and Rowan to want different things. Not these things. Not this.
“Milo, please!”
“Whoa, where’s the fire?” Riley interrupted Milo’s rampaging pace, intercepting him in the lobby of their building, where she appeared to be working on security sensors along the interior windows. Her flying trash bin of a bot Pal floated above her.
Everywhere, Milo thought, because to him, the whole world was burning.
He didn’t answer, but stormed past Riley too.
“Milo—”
“Milo!” Rowan overlapped her call, close at Milo’s heels.
Milo rushed ahead faster, aiming to reach the elevators before Rowan could catch up to him. He needed two seconds alone in the apartment, or he felt like he might burst.
WARNING: Internal temperature spiking—
Milo silenced the diagnostic and reached the elevators just as the farthest one opened—to reveal Ethel and Anabelle stepping out of it.
“Milo, dear, is—”
“Sorry, Ethel.” Milo pushed past her too. As he swiftly turned inside the elevator and pressed the button for their floor, he saw Rowan breaking into a sprint, while simultaneously remembering that Ethel had never taken maintenance authority back from Milo to give Anabelle orders. Milo felt dirty for doing what he did next but spoke the words without thinking, “Anabelle, do not let Rowan onto this elevator.”
“Milo?” Ethel questioned, as Anabelle stepped toward Rowan and physically blocked him from getting past her. They would call her off and change her orders eventually, but not before the elevator door closed in front of Rowan’s stricken face.
Now Milo felt guilty besides… everything else he was feeling that he couldn’t fully explain. He both wanted to run and to curltightly into a ball and not move for hours. He wanted to scream with unleashed rage but also saturate his cheeks with tears.
He wanted Rowan to hold him so badly.
He didn’t want to see Rowan right now.
The human experience wasexhaustingandconfusing, and for a moment, Milo wished he had never known what it was like to feel either.
Reaching the apartment happened in a haze, and before he knew it, he was in the living room, sinking to his knees and then settling into a sitting position cross-legged and limp. He wasn’t sure how much time passed, so similar to that first day alive when hours moved like minutes. He only startled to attention when Spot bumped into his hip.
Milo turned to her and her jiggling googly eyes while she spun to right herself from this new obstacle. She shouldn’t still be doing that. Her new sensors meant she should easily be able to avoid anything unexpected blocking her usual paths around the apartment. But the way she continued to lightly bump Milo in her adjustments was almost like a purposeful nuzzle. He instinctively wanted to pet her, even if this act of seeming sentience was just a coincidence or some new malfunction.
Maybe they could add fur to her next.
The front door opening was soft and tentative. Rowan didn’t say anything as he came up behind Milo, so Milo had to speak first.
“I’m sorry. I-I just… I n-needed…”
“I know. It’s okay.” Rowan sat down beside Milo with Spot between them. “I’msorry that I don’t know how to make this better.”
It was unfair to expect so much from Rowan. Milo knew that. But in the moment, logic had ceased to exist. It seemed emotion almost always overrode logic.
