And I say it—not a plea, not a challenge. Just truth.
“You don’t have to lie to me, Kristi Montana. Just don’t lie to yourself.”
She hesitates.
Not long. Not loud.
But the world hangs in that heartbeat. Long enough for her to breathe in, to feel it settle. Then she leaves, steps clipped and spine straight, but not as hard as when she came in.
The door closes behind her.
And I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath for hours.
When the staff clears out for the night, when the floors are mopped and the burners shut down and the prep boards gleam under sanitizing light, I walk back into the kitchen. It’s quietnow. Just me and the flickering lanterns, the soft creak of wood, the hum of old things remembered.
I strike the match.
The ceremonial flame is small, steady, sacred. It’s not for show. It’s not for customers.
It’s for kin.
And tonight, for the first time in a long while, I light it for someone not born of my blood.
And I leave it burning.
In case she finds her way home.
CHAPTER 9
KRISTI
The screen cuts to black.
The holonet replay stutters for a second, buffering maybe, or maybe it's just the cheap projector built into my wall shorting out from overuse. Either way, the silence that follows is worse than the music they picked for the credits—some syrupy jingle that tried to make a cultural moment out of what was just a rainstorm, a kitchen, and one very stupid choice.
My reflection hovers in the blank screen—messy hair, tired eyes, a pale smear of a woman in a dark apartment. My compad’s backlight glows cold in my periphery. I haven’t touched it in an hour, but I know it’s full of messages. Half the galaxy suddenly has an opinion on my face, my laugh, my choice of soup. Or worse—my proximity tohim.
Kenron.
Gods.
I can’t get the image out of my head—his hands tossing firefruit like they weighed nothing, that damn smirk, the way our shoulders kept brushing because there wasn’t enough room in that cramped kitchen for the distance I suddenly needed. The camera caught it all. My flushed cheeks. The stupid flutter in mylaugh when he nudged me with his elbow. The way he looked at me like I was something worth paying attention to.
Thousands of people saw that.Thousands. Holonet numbers don’t lie. I’m trending. #VakutanVibes. #KitchenChemistry. #HumanSpice.
It’s disgusting.
No—it’s terrifying.
I stand up too fast and my knee clips the edge of the table. Pain shoots through my leg, grounding me. I want to scream. I want to hurl something, but the only fragile thing in here is me, and I already feel like I’m cracking.
The projection restarts automatically—loop mode—and there I am again. Laughing. Twirling a wooden spoon like a baton. Kenron winks at me, and the audience eats it up. The comments scroll by so fast they blur, but I catch enough to feel sick.
She’s not like other humans.
Intergalactic couple goals!
If Earth First sees this, she’s toast.
