The Story

"You know, I really don't know all that much about you," said Em. "Tell me what I don't know. Everything. Good, bad and ugly." Em twirled her hair. Trev looked at her like she was crazy. "Start with anything. Doesn't have to be scary."

"Okay, I like red ink and I hate black ink."

Em smiled. If this is a metaphor, I think I'm about to fall in love."

Trev frowned. "Would have been a good one."

"It's not?"

"Afraid not. I just like red ink and I prefer almost any color over black. Black is so lifeless, so impersonal, so business and staid, and old and humorless. Red, on the other hand, is alive, like blood. When you see it, you know--you know something important is here, something that should be remarked, remembered, taken seriously. Red is the color of life."

"Wow. I never knew. Tell me something else. Something I don't know."

"I can't step on an ant. I can't swat a fly. I just can't kill any living thing. It's why I decided to go to medical school. I know it sounds cliché, but I've always wanted to be the one that could save a life, not take it. The trouble is pride. I see it in the corners. Pride lurking. It whispers to me. Tells me I'm better than others because I save lives. I know its not true, that life is not that black and white, that truth is more than just a series of firmly held postulates; yet, I hear the voice. I'm unable to shake it."

"Do you want to? I mean, do you really want to let the pride go? What if that pride is what is driving you, that that pride is doing you more good than bad?"

"That's a very nice way to look at it and I love you to pieces for the heart that can say such things, but the truth of the matter is this." Trev hesitated. He had shared before. Opened his heart. And in every case, not some, but every time, he had been attacked for the honesty, told he shouldn't feel or think that way. Judged. He was tired of the weight of judgment. He was tired of people asking him to open up only to smash him in the mouth when he did. He looked at Em. His jaw tightened. His breath shallowed.

"Is what?"

Trev sighed. "If I tell you what I really feel, if I show you my heart, completely raw, as it is, will you judge me?"

Em sat up. "Of course not."

"What if I told you that everyone else has made the same claim. Said one thing and then did another?"

"I'm not everyone else." Trev didn't respond. "Look, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to but--"

"But what?"

"But if you don't tell me, who are you going to tell? If you don't trust me, you can you trust? We are a crew of seven, eight if you want to count Kieran. Listen to me Trev. There are not a lot of other fish in the ocean. I'm here. Now. I've got two ears and one heart and I think I know how to use them."

"Okay. The pride is not driving me. It is a reflection of my immaturity, of my need to feel like I matter, that I am important. I can't pilot the ship like Rog. I can't do Zing Tao stuff like Kyra and Von. I can't Null like Mairi or even flirt and frail like Yul." He stopped, lost in his own emotional wash.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Did you leave me out on purpose?"

"What?"

"You listed everyone on board but me."

"No, not on purpose."

"Well . . ."

"Are you looking for a reason to disown me? Is that what this is about?"

"Wow. I can't believe you just said that."

"I'm sorry."

"Are you really."

"Em, I've never known someone that I felt sincerely cared about me for who I am. So I've lived most of my life pretending to be someone I'm not, trying to please people, to be accepted. When I look at you, that is what I see. I see someone who doesn't have to try, who doesn't even know how to project. You are who you are. I struggle to even know what that means."

"Oh Trev."

"Em, when I hear to tell stories about your mom and dad, I pretend to be happy and in a certain sense, I am, happy for you. But you know what else?"

"What baby?"

"Those stories are like a knife in my side. Everything you had. I didn't. Your stories remind me of what I didn't have, will never have and although I try to resist it, I resent that you had them in your life. Do you see it? Do you see my immaturity? Do you want to run away now? Do you want to laugh at me and tell everyone else what an idiot I am?"

"Are you through?"

"Well . . ."

"Can I tell you something?"

"Go for it."

"I didn't ask nor did I choose my parents. Neither did you. What we had or didn't have is history. It exist in memory. We can't change it. But you know what, we are not slaves to it either."

"I don't know how to let go."

Em laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"There is no 'how' in letting go."

"I don't follow."

"I don't know how to explain it other than it is like breathing. You just do it. If you think about it or try, it

Kyra and Von floated into the inner decompression chamber of the Dyad, only the sound of their respirators flowing within their illuminated ears with the gentle consistency of ocean lapping shore. Data flickered before Kyra’s sapphire iris as the Dyad’s blueprints shuffled room by room, Von in tow.

John and Rog watched the monitors from the bridge of Bravo. Kyra’s heart rate exploded. Rog smashed his comm., “Kyra? Is everything alright?”

John looked at Rog, their chests constricting with the suffocating sound of static.

“Kyra!”

“Hold on Rog,” she replied. Kyra looked at the data again. They were not alone.

John tapped Rog on the shoulder and pointed to the far right of the console. Where only two life forms should have been showing, there were four. “Holy Shiott. How the hellocks did we miss that?”

“It’s your ship,” said John.

“Don’t.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Snazzle, get them out of there right now,” barked Rog.

“I can’t.”

“Don’t give me can’t,” said Rog.

“Rog?”

“What!”

“I think you’ll want to see this,” said Snazzle, pulling up a visual on the main screen.

John’s dry cracked lips hung open. Rog shook his swimming head. “Oh my frailing Janus.”