She takes a deep breath. “There’s no judgment here, right? You won’t look at me differently based on my answers?”
“Of course I won’t.”
“My boyfriend was sleeping over at my apartment. We’d had a movie night. This was right after college. We watched some war movie I barely remember, and he’d cooked us this stir fry that tasted…off. Anyway, we go to sleep, and I have this dream about the movie. There are all these gunshots, and it felt incredibly real. I woke up thinking someone was breaking into my apartment and shooting at us.” The corners of her mouth turn downward as she pauses. “But it was just me farting in my sleep.”
A surprised laugh bursts out of me as I envision the visceral fear on her face as she popped up in bed expecting a massacre only to discover a stream of toots coming out of her adorable backside.
She smacks my arm as I continue to laugh, unable to compose myself.
“Why did you even tell them that story if you were so embarrassed? Why not choose something else?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. They asked. I panicked. The truth came out.”
When she asks for mine, I tell her about the time I intentionally soiled my pants in the middle of our family’s annual ball to avoid dancing with the princess of a neighboring planet.
“Why didn’t you just dance with her?”
“I was too nervous I’d flatten her toes.” I shudder at the memory. “All those people watching…”
She drops her face in her hands, grumbling, “Mine was so much worse than yours.”
My laughter fades as I get ready to ask the next question. “What about the choice you wish you could take back?”
Her answer comes easily. “Oh, that. I put my coworker’s credit card number on Reddit after she told me my skin wouldn’t look so haggard if I drank more water.”
I shouldn’t push this, but I can’t help but wonder why her answer had nothing to do with her fleeing Etirinu. “Really? That was the choice? You don’t have any bigger regrets?” Although, even if her answer did have something to do with the events that brought her to the island, she wouldn’t reveal that to Lord Forchan and his ilk.
She shakes her head, unbothered. “Nope. That’s it. It was shitty of me. It took her years to untangle that mess and get the fraudulent charges removed from her account.”
“What about the real answer? I mean, if Lord Forchan wasn’t the one asking, would your answer be the same?”
Her gaze narrows, and I sense a shift in her mood. “What are you getting at, Ziv?”
“Nothing,” I tell her. “I was merely curious.” When that response doesn’t seem adequate to her, I add, “We don’t know what the other part of the test will be like. I want to make sure I know all there is to know about you. That’s all.”
“Well, I highly doubt they’ll ask the same questions a second time.” Her tone is clipped as she rises to her feet, striding into the kitchen for a glass of water. “What would be the point of that?”
I don’t like the way she’s looking at me, or the stiffness in her posture. This morning, before the test––that’s what I want to return to. The good feelings.
“You’re right,” I tell her, coming to stand in front of her. “Let’s forget about it.” I press a kiss to her hair and hope the day can go on without the same tension in the air, and that whatever answers we gave were good enough for us to pass.
Chapter 12
JUNE
“Come on,” I urge as I twirl Akkal around by the hand the following night. “Join us.”
Zivren laughs but shakes his head.
The music coming out of the projector is the closest thing to eighties pop I’ve heard since I left Earth, and despite it being from another planet and the lyrics in another language, I’m having a blast moving my body to the beat. Akkal is too, which is no surprise. We dance every night before bed now.
I told him it’s a good way to release the lingering energy of the day—get inside your body and out of your head—and it’s become my favorite daily routine.
Akkal waves his arms over his head as he spins, kicking his feet out in a step too fast for me to replicate. His smile is wide enough to reach his eyes. I’m growing extremely attached to this gentle little weirdo.
“Yeah, bud. Shake it,” I tell him as I attempt a spin of my own. It’s not as graceful, but at least I don’t fall.
I look over at Ziv again, who’s watching us with a delighted smirk. “What are you afraid of? It’s just us.”
