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“You made me tell you.” I gestured with the bone at him.
He was smiling at me. “Why is your resistance thing so meaningful, then?”
“Because it helps other people.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.”
“You sure it’s really about other people, though? I mean, you don’t get a charge out of having important missions, things that are difficult and dangerous? That doesn’t make you feel like you’re special?”
“Shut up,” I said. “You don’t have to be like this just because I said you were being—”
“I’m just saying, itisgratifying,” he said. “And, you know, whatever. I could tell myself that this hunting thing I do out there, that I’m doing good for donenkind at large, because wild-hunted meat is healthier and better for the planetary environment and more ethical than keeping animals penned up in farms and all kinds of crap. If I wanted to believe what I did was good for people, I could spin myself a story.”
“Look, the resistanceisdoing good. It’s not a spin—”
“Sure,” he said. “It is. And you wouldn’t be able to keep doing that good for the galaxy if it didn’t make you feel special.”
I shook my head at him. “You’re interpreting it all weird.”
“Here’s a question for you.” He raised a finger. “You have any brothers or sisters?”
“No,” I said.
“What about your parents?”
“What aboutyourparents?”
“Dad’s gone, but I see my mother probably two or three times a gemoon,” he said. “What if your mom got real sick and needed you to quit the resistance and come home to take care of her?”
I scoffed.
“You’re just a selfless, sweet receptacle of good for the galaxy,” he said in a mocking tone. “So—”
“Okay, you made your point,” I muttered. “I do like it.”
“It matters to you,” he said. “You wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
“I wouldn’t give it up,” I said. “It matters. Not just to me… but I guess, yeah, fine, to me, too. It’s, like, sort of part of my identity.”
“I totally get that,” he said, grinning at me. “I really do.”
I sighed, shaking my head. He didn’t get it.
“Don’t feel ashamed of that,” he said. “Or… I don’t know, sometimesIfeel ashamed of it, I guess. I want to be…”
“Be what?”
“I wonder what it would feel like if there was someone else, someone more important than all that, someone I’d put first, above everything.”
I thought about that. Was there someoneI’dput ahead of the resistance?
Sienne, my contact, my friend, she was devoted to the resistance, but I knew that her priority was always to Caspe, who was her husband and partner, and that he came first.
What if I had someone like that?
“You, uh, I guess you don’t date much?” I said.
