Disappointment settled heavy on my tongue. When I first saw her, the only option felt like avoidance. But as the days went by and she was there, real and alive, I wanted to reach out, to ask about her day and all the years we missed. Couldn’t we try to be siblings again? We didn’t have anyone else — no one who knew our darkest days.
Maddy stopped at the threshold. “You can join me on the smoke break.”
I felt a smile coming on that I bit back. I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Couldn’t.
At the exit, she made sure Roys wasn’t looking our way and signaled for me to follow. When I stepped out, I glanced over to find him standing by the weights. He had the holo screen up on his commlink, checking on the storage room, and then clicked it off. Fucker was looking around for me.
My heart stuttered. I slammed a hand against my chest.
Maddy walked behind the habitat and lit up. She offered me a cigarette.
“Why are you avoiding the captain?” she asked.
“I thought you said to work my shit out.”
She flicked ashes at me. I wiped them off but didn’t dare return the favor.
“He got snippy with me the day we got caught in the shuttle,” I replied, growing hot from the memory, the way he looked at me, all the lies he spewed moments before that I dared to believe for a second. “I don’t know. He was acting weird. I think he didn’t trust my plan.”
“Anyone would understandably be pissed to be saved by you because that would mean they’re stupid,” she said.
“You’re so kind to me.” I kept my eyes away from her lest she discover how happy I was. I’d take her insults over silence. “Anyway, now he wants to apologize, but I don’t care; he can go fuck himself.”
“Seems like you care to me.”
I took a long drag. “In what way?”
“All the staring you two do. If you’re not watching him, he’s watching you.”
My heart skipped.Was he really?
“It’s pretty disgusting, actually,” she grumbled.
“That implies that you have been watching us, or specifically m—” I yelped when she rammed her heel into my toes.
She relinquished her torment and settled her back against the habitat. “All our lives depend on you lot, so don’t screw it up by losing your shit.”
“I don’t know if I ever had any shit to lose.”
She gave the comment some thought, nodded, then added, “Talk to him.”
A sour taste filled my mouth. “No.”
She wore the frown of one who stepped in dog shit and smelled it for a click. “Here I am giving you sisterly advice, and you’re going toignore it?”
“It is poor advice.” I shivered, not needing to see the glare she fixed on me to know it was there. “I meant, you don’t know the full story, and if you did, then you would speak differently.”
“Suit yourself.” She left without another word.
I felt neither triumphant nor defeated. We talked, albeit for a moment. She implied she had kept her eye on me, as I had done with her. Maybe in these three months we’d end up with some semblance of a relationship. Nothing like we were at the Colony, where we trusted one another, where she trusted me, but better than nothing. Better than believing the other to be dead… and her being disappointed when she learned I wasn’t.
I would never have a family again. Even our corpses couldn’t be reunited. But maybe like this I could get a glimpse into what might have been.
“Didn’t I tell you to stop that?”
“Son of a bitch!” I threw a punch that didn’t land.
Roys smacked my hand away, failing to hide his smug expression. “I was beginning to think we were past the point of you wanting to break my nose.”
