Page 264 of Every Almost

"Something my dad used to say."

"But I'm the captain of this vessel!"

"Not right now you're not." And then Charlie reached for her again. "Come here."

And then Charlie spun her out to the end of her own arm before reeling her back in and catching her.

Somewhere in between the dancing and the spinning and the laughter, the running commentary in Reyna's head stopped. The part of her that had always been standing behind her left shoulder for as long as she could remember, watching her, assessing how she looked doing it, just went quiet.

So she let Charlie lead, she let Charlie spin her, and she let herself be ridiculous, out loud, for the first time she could ever remember.

Then the song ended.

They stopped in the middle of the room, both of them breathing hard, Charlie's hand still in hers.

"See?" Charlie's face was bright and lit up, her cheeks pink, and a wide grin etched on her face. "Dancing always makes everything better."

Reyna just looked at her.

And kept looking.

It went on too long, Reyna was completely aware of that. There was a point where a reasonable person would have said something, but Reyna went past it. She stood in the middle of the Observation Room, looking at Charlie Wickett, and couldn't stop.

And the whole night came back up. The denial, the Admiral, the transfer instruction, all of it, except this time there was nothing to fight.

They are taking you.

And I've never said to you what I should.

And I let every night of it go by because I was afraid, afraid of the completely wrong thing, and I would give anything, anything at all, for one more?—

Charlie caught her staring.

"What?"

But then another song began to play.

Reyna didn't move.

"What just happened?"

It came out of her breathy and strange, and she watched Charlie take a moment before she answered.

"Autoshuffle."

Reyna laughed. "Autoshuffle?" She was trying to stifle the laugh and failing. "What is that, exactly?"

"Uh, well." Charlie shifted her weight. "Tavi invented it. For the music program."

"The music program."

"Yeah. The, uh. The one we use on our datapads. To play music."

"I am familiar with it," Reyna said.

"Right. Yeah, of course." Charlie cleared her throat. "Well, Tavi added some features. Like playing through the sound system in a specific room."

She lifted her hands, indicating the room around them and the sound pouring into it through the speakers.