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“I told you we needed to talk.”
“We should have talked the moment that woman stepped on board!” She leans forward with anger and then slumps back in the chair, pressing her fingers to the center of her forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at Bethiah, and I’m mad at myself, and I’m venting at you because you’ll actually listen when I say I’m upset.”
“Ah.” I move to her side and crouch down next to her chair, ignoring the creak of my prosthetics as I do. “You wanna talk about it?”
She rubs the heel of her palm in one eye and wipes away a few stray tears as she tells me about Rhonda’s words, and then her confrontation with Bethiah. I let her vent without interrupting, listening and stroking her arm.
“She made me think I’m gross, Jamef. That I haven’t been taking care of myself and no one’s going to want a human with yucky hands and terrible hair. And the worst part about it is that I’m a fucking clone! This is what I’ve got to work with!” Dora gestures at her hair with a look of despair. “I feel like an idiot because I’m sure some of it is ex-girlfriend bitchiness, but now I’m doubting myself and I’m doubting Bethiah.”
“Have we ever made you feel ugly? Unkempt? Unpleasant looking?”
“No.” Her lower lip trembles and she gives me a heartbreakingly tiny smile. “You always make me feel beautiful.”
“Then why did you listen to her?”
“Because what she said sounded right. And she knows about surviving here as a human. I don’t. Sometimes it worries me how much I don’t know.” She grabs my hand and holds it tightly. “I can’t tell what’s truth and what’s a lie because I don’t have it in my memories. So when she tells me that no one wants a human with dry skin, how do I know if that’s true or not?”
“You come to your mates,” I say, voice firm. “We won’t lie to you.”
“No, Bethiah will just carefully omit things.” She makes a face. “Why is she so goddamn impossible? Why do we even like her?”
I stroke her smaller hand with my thumb. “Because we both know that she’s been hurt in the past and she doesn’t like to be vulnerable. Because we know that when she opens up, she’s vibrant and exciting and loving.”
She gazes down at our joined hands. “Are you saying I shouldn’t be mad?”
“No.” I chuckle. “Be keffing mad. I’m furious at her on your behalf. I’m just trying to understand her reasoning. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think she omitted it to hurt you. She’s been very quiet ever since she found out Rhonda was on-board that station, alone.” I lean in until Dora meets my gaze. “And when we were on station, all Bethiah could think about was getting you a present of some kind. She never stopped thinking about you.”
She sighs heavily. “Fuck. I hate this. I hate Rhonda and I’m mad at Bethiah and I’m mad that I’m dead weight in our group. Clueless dead weight.”
The admission startles me. “You’re not. You’re the glue that keeps our triad together.”
Dora shakes her head, releasing my hand, and I want to grab her and recapture it again, just so she won’t pull away from me. “You say that, but I’m a liability. I can’t fire a blaster. I can’t run the ship. I’m costing you credits, and now apparently people can lie to my face and I just soak it all in. At what point am I being anything but useless?”
I don’t have an answer for her. She’s not wrong, and yet at the same time, it feels as if she’s completely discounting how much her sweet cheerfulness and her loving affection means to someone like me. To someone like Bethiah. “Don’t talk about yourself like that.”
“But it’s true. I’m not beautiful like Rhonda. If I’m not functional, what purpose do I serve? Sitting around and waiting to suck a dick or lick a pussy? Doesn’t that just make me a whore?”
“You know it doesn’t. She really did a number on your head, didn’t she?”
Dora shrugs, her expression full of self-pity. “She’s a human who knows how to handle herself on this end of the universe and I don’t. How can I not take what she says to heart?”
I try not to hate anyone, but I’m starting to hate Rhonda, if only for what her presence is doing to my mates. “Do you want us to dump Rhonda back on the station? If she bothers you, we will.”
She sits up immediately. “Seriously? Keffing yes.”
With a grunt of acknowledgment, I get to my feet and cross the bridge, heading for the controls. I tap into the navigation system and pull up our current course.
