Page 184 of Every Almost

"Everyone," Charlie answered honestly. "Society. Family. Even my place of employment. In some places, laws were enacted to ban certain relationships. Many of them still stand. My own biological parents told me I wasn't welcome in their home any longer because of it." Charlie paused. "I was twenty-five. I was strong enough to handle it. But my sister, Katie, she was nineteen. She stood there, next to me in our front doorway, and looked right at our father and said, 'She's your daughter.'"

Charlie took a deep breath, the memory flooding her mind. It was always hard to think about it, but telling someone was entirely different. In fact, Charlie couldn't remember ever telling anyone this memory from beginning to end. Somehow, it soothed Charlie knowing Reyna would be the first.

"When my father didn't move, Katie just turned around to face me, and asked me if she could move to California." Charlie heard Reyna's sharp intake of breath. "She walked out with me." Charlie's voice was steady, but the steadiness was load-bearing. "She left her home for me. Packed her things, got in the car, anddrove to California with me that same night. She was nineteen years old and she chose me over everything she knew." Charlie looked at Reyna. "I lived with it for so long without my parents knowing because, I think, somewhere deep down, I knew that would be the result. But I didn't know Katie would do that. I didn't know anyone would do that. For me."

Reyna's expression changed. The laughter was gone and what replaced it was something between bewilderment and anger.

"Your family rejected you for loving women?"

Charlie took a deep breath. "Yeah."

"And this is... common? On Earth?"

"It can be," Charlie said. "Humans can be... judgmental. Being here has actually made me realize it didn't have to be that way."

Reyna was quiet. Charlie could see it happening behind her eyes, the tactical brain being handed a problem with no logical basis and, therefore, no logical solution. Reyna fought things by understanding them, but there was nothing to understand here.

"And your sister," Reyna said. "She wasnineteen."

It wasn't a question. Reyna was processing the data, just as when she repeated mission data when something didn't add up. As though the number itself was the part she couldn't get past. Nineteen years old, and Katie had chosen Charlie over her own home, without hesitation, without having to even be asked.

"Yeah," Charlie said.

"And you didn't expect her to."

Charlie's throat tightened. Because Reyna had caught it. The part Charlie hadn't meant to say out loud. Not just that her parents rejected her, but that she had been so accustomed to the possibility of rejection that her own sister's loyalty came as a surprise.

Of course Reyna had caught it.

"No," Charlie said quietly. "I didn't."

Reyna looked at her for a long moment. Then she spoke, and her voice carried a steadiness that was doing a very poor job of concealing the fury underneath.

"I'm sorry." She paused. "Not for asking. Not for learning a truth about humans that I will carry with considerable displeasure. But for the fact that it needed to be difficult at all."

Charlie looked at her. This woman who had just laughed at the word "fornicate" and was now looking at Charlie with the quiet fury of someone who would fight a planet's worth of prejudice if she could figure out where to aim.

"It's okay," Charlie said. "It made me who I am."

"That doesn't make it okay," Reyna said, and the fire under the words was real.

"No," Charlie agreed. "No, I know it doesn't."

Then she did something different, something she'd never done before, and she wasn't entirely sure what possessed her to do it.

She leaned over and bumped Reyna with her shoulder. "But it got me here." And then Charlie smiled.

She didn't say what she meant by "here." But somehow, for the first time, she felt she didn't need to, because Reyna looked at her in a way she hadn't yet before. She held Charlie's gaze while the stars and the quiet surrounded them. Then a small smile formed on Reyna's lips before she leaned over and bumped her shoulder against Charlie's.

And, in that move, Charlie clocked that Reyna now sat another two inches closer on the bench.

She didn't move away. She didn't adjust, didn't create the distance that a reasonable, professional, temporary crew member should absolutely be creating. She just sat there, aware of the exact measurement between her right shoulder and Reyna's left, aware that the distance had changed, and fullyaware that her body hadnoticedthe change the exact same night her mind decided it mattered.

"It's good having you here, Earthling," Reyna said, catching Charlie with a smirk before turning back to the viewport to watch a cluster of stars drift past the glass.

Charlie stared at Reyna's profile. The sage-green skin lit by starlight. The gold markings, steady and warm. And then Charlie's chest constricted the way it had earlier. But this time, her breathing went shallow, and suddenly the whole speech she'd given herself about how this was stupid and dumb and foolish, oh and ludicrous, collapsed under the weight of a two-inch difference on a bench.

Because Charlie Wickett was in very big trouble.