Page 70 of How My Fake Alien Boyfriend Learned to Cook and Saved the Family Business

I didn’t know. I never realized how bad it was, or how much they wanted me here. And it hurt to know that my family was silently struggling without me. For a split second, I almost let the weight of that guilt drag me down.

But that wasn’t what I was supposed to take from his confession.

It was the other part—the part where I was happy, and where my happiness had spread to my loved ones. The part where I understood that I was exactly where I was meant to be.

My stupid, brilliant, annoying little brother was right. What was I still doing in my apartment? I was just crying about Kal leaving without saying goodbye, but I could have a choice in the matter, too. If there was still a chance I could catch Kal, talk to him before he left forever, then that was a chance I needed to take.

For the first time in a long time, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would be making the right choice. Kal belonged in Roswell Falls, with me.

“You’re right!” I pushed back from the counter and stared Jacob down. “What the hell are we still doing hanging around here?”

For several seconds, Jacob stared at me, and I stared at him. Like we were simultaneously malfunctioning from the unexpected emotional exchange and didn’t know how to proceed.

“So, um, now what?” I asked stupidly.

Or, in other words, how the hell were we supposed to track down an alien spaceship and find Kal before he left forever?

Again, my brother looked shy, almost embarrassed. “You have to promise you won’t make fun of me.”

My feet felt like they were winding up and raring to go—whirling and sending up a cloud of dust like in a cartoon. I couldn’t think of anything that would cause me to make fun of Jacob. I had never loved him more.

“Pinky promise.” I thrust my pinky toward him, and Jacob hooked his own around my finger.

Then, in one long run-on sentence of a confession: “So I joined the engineering club at school earlier this year and I didn’t tell anyone because I was embarrassed, but when Kal came and he started acting weird, I really did think he was an alien, so I kind of, you know…did a bunch of research and made a device that could detect near-range extraterrestrial activity.”

Jacob sucked in a breath and looked at me, pulling a strange device from his back pocket and holding it between us.

My mouth hung open and empty of words. I didn’t even know how to process that information. I could have asked how it worked, but…did I really care? Was it important? Truth was, I didn’t care how it worked as long as it did work.

“You’re such a nerd!” I pulled my brother into a tight hug.

“Shut up.” Jacob shoved me away. “Now let’s go!” He took two steps and pointed an accusatory finger at me. “And don’t you dare tell Mom or Dad.”

Nope, there was no way I was promising him that. I was going to bake Jacob a cake and brag about his accomplishments at the next family dinner. Instead, I pushed him toward the door and yelled at him to “Go, go, go!”

Kal

Sel was wearing a human suit of her own, an extra precaution in case we were sighted, but I recognized her immediately.

“Hey, loser.”

Yep, definitely my coworker. She was standing several feet away, arms crossed, looking down her nose at me.

“I hope you had a good trip,” she sneered. “Because you know that’s the last time you’ll ever leave Xaerea, right?”

I couldn’t help but notice that Sel was exactly the same. Still the same grumpy, unkind coworker she’d always been. Quick to put me down and make me feel small. There was no joy for me in going home, especially after being here on Earth, with people who accepted me for exactly who I was.

I greeted Sel with a smile anyway.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes, picking nervously at her hu-suit. “What’s your problem, Kalexdyorn? You’re not going to say anything?”

I shrugged. No, I wasn’t. There was nothing I could say that would make her treat me nicely. But it didn’t matter, because I’d realized something as I sat there waiting for the ship’s arrival. Something that felt like a weight being lifted off my shoulders.

I was different, even if my peers weren’t.

Yes, I had always felt different on Xaerea. It was one of the many reasons why I’d struggled to fit in. But I’d learned that my differences didn’t make me inadequate or wrong—they were just the parts of me that deserved love and acceptance but never received it. From myself or others.

Now that I knew what it felt like to love and be loved, nothing could change that.