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“No need to apologize.”
“I’m so close to losing someone I love,” I explain, clutching the towel to my chest and stepping into the open stall next to his. “I can’t do anything about it. I just have to hope they’ll be okay. It feels like too much is out of my control.”
“That is difficult,” he agrees softly. He must’ve been through it, too, or something like it. “I wish I had a solution for you. But I never solved that sort of struggle. Even if I’ve known it countless times myself, I never cracked the code.”
“You don’t have to solve it. It’s unsolvable, isn’t it? But I appreciate you listening anyway.”
“Hopefully you handle such things better than I do,” he says. “Losing someone can open a hole in your heart, and you must be very careful what you fill it with.”
The room is humid, but a chill goes up my spine.
“R-right,” I say. “Grief takes a toll. I haven’t lost them yet, but I’m so afraid of the possibility. It’s paralyzing.”
“Think of it this way, if it was you in their place, would you want them to feel paralyzed? Would you want them to let your suffering hurt them?”
“No,” I reply.
“So try not to stop living on account of their … illness or whatever it is, hm? If they come back to you, you’ll be stronger, more capable of helping them.”
“Wise words,” I say. “It sounds like you’ve learned something from what you’ve gone through.”
“Unfortunately, I never take my own good advice.”
“And why not?”
The bench creaks again as he stands up.
“I’ll leave you your privacy now. Seems I’ve mostly dried off.” I hear the sounds of him opening the dry compartment and gathering his items. Then his stall door unlatches as he readies to leave.
I watch his feet. He pauses outside the door to my stall.
“Was that a strange conversation to have in a bathing room?” he asks. “Did I help you at all?”
“Actually,” I say, blinking at the wall between us. “Yes.”
He’s right about what Frankie would say to me if she could talk right now. She’d tell me to quit moping and go home. Is staying onThe Rightful Heirout of guilt and fear of losing her the right choice? Probably not. I’ll have nothing to do and no way of contributing. If they’re on lockdown, they’ll be rationing food, and I’m one more mouth to feed. Not to mention Raffa, who’s more like three mouths to feed. But if I go home, I can fix up Frankie’s farm, make everything ready for her. Raffa and I can take care of two farms if I cut back on my teaching shifts.
“I’m glad someone can put my advice to use,” he says.
He didn’t answer my question, though.
While my head’s still spinning, his footsteps take him further away.
“Be good, female,” he says in place of a goodbye. “Stay out of trouble now.”
How odd, I think as I finally turn on the shower. It almost feels like I could’ve dreamed that conversation. Even if I did, it’s still a breakthrough. If Frankie’s not out of the regen by the time the last ship leavesThe Rightful Heir, Raffa and I will be on it, headed to EC-12. And when she does recover, we’ll be back here as soon as we can to take her home.
CHAPTERSEVEN
KAYE
After teary-eyed goodbyeswith Raina (my tears, not hers), Raffa and I descended the gangplank ofThe Primordial Avengerfor the last time. The boy was understandably miserable, dragging his trunk of belongings along the ground so that it made an irritatingkathunk, kathunk, kathunknoise. I didn’t have the heart to tell him to knock it off. He’s a naturally bright soul, so it hurts to see him like this. His sister gave him a family heirloom, a specialikaniblade. The crew pitched in to buy him a brand new comm device and breathable clothes better suited for living within a true atmosphere. But while he expressed his thanks and gave them all heartfelt embraces and well wishes, he hasn’t stopped being dismal since his argument with Rossa.
“We’re going to stay with Lalo until it’s time to leave for EC-12,” I tell him as we leave the airfield and enter the marketplace. “You know her?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says dimly. “Everyone knows her.”
New ships have been arriving every day onThe Heir, and with each new ship, the tables set up in the marketplace square double as the community prepares for battle. Yesterday when we walked by, warriors were having their hair bound up, cropped short, or braided in the hairstylists’ booths. Today, there’s a mass of people gathering to donate what food they can to a call for rations. The need for provisions will grow as some families choose to split— some joining the fleet, some staying here for the lockdown, and some departing for another safe location like Raffa and I will be. Everyone’s in a tizzy, and Raffa isn’t the only one carting their worldly possessions from one place to another. Others are saying goodbye too. Kar’Kali don’t seem to cry, but I see pained expressions and extended embraces between couples that don’t wish to part.
