She had come here three months ago carrying houseplants and a bruised ego and a hope that she could bring this place back to its former glory. To defy her estranged grandfather, and to see her great-grandfather’s vision. She had pulled the coverings off the windows and let the light in. She had baked muffins that were terrible and then muffins that were good. She’d met people who became her friends, fixed things that were broken, and stood in the rain at two in the morning with a man she’d fallen in love with.
And none of it had been enough.
Holly pressed her face into Bean’s fur and held on.
Forty-Three
Holly lay in bed and stared at the ceiling she had come to know so well that she could imagine falling upwards, right into it. Disappearing. Into oblivion.
She had been here for three days. Or maybe four. She’d lost track. Without the firehose of tasks, her body and mind simply said “enough,” and sent her into a mix of rest and depression. She got up to use the bathroom, to eat NuProd porridge that tasted like wallpaper paste and defeat, then shuffled back to bed. Her wrist comm was off. She had powered it down on the first day, left it in the living room, and hadn’t touched it since.
People had come by. She’d heard knocks on the door, but didn’t know who unless they also called through it. Harry had delivered a muffled speech through the door about mushroom tea and its restorative properties that Holly had listened to without moving. Mish had come, telling her that she was thinking about her and something about people being worried. She’d announced that she was leaving a container of soup outside the door. Holly had not opened the door or the soup. Luv had retrieved the soup and tried, unsuccessfully, to get Holly to eat it.
Alyce had come twice, bellowing for her to get her ass outside or she’d have Luv reprogrammed to sing old Earth show tunes in falsetto. Luv had grumbled about that, but hadn’t refused to submit to it. The Homeboti seemed to be worried about Holly, and demonstrated this by somehow making her rollerball squeak again, and complaining that ifshehad a body, she wouldn’t waste it by lying in bed all day. But Holly was exhausted inside and out. Her body felt like it was subject to the gravity of a neutron star. Everything hurt.
Everything.
Her muscles ached and not the good ache from productive work, but from the deep, grinding soreness that came from pushing a body and mind past its limits for too long, then stopping cold. Her shoulders burned when she moved. Her hands were stiff. Even her jaw was sore, from clenching it through all those hours in the control tower. And then there was her heart, which was the most battered of all.
Bean had not left her side except when Luv took him out. He slept beside her, or on her, or pressed against her back, a warm, constant weight that asked nothing and gave everything. He seemed to understand that something was wrong. Her parents always said that dogs understood more than they were given credit for. Holly couldn’t argue. Bean’s response to her stress was to simply be there, which was more than Holly could manage for anyone else.
She rolled onto her side and pulled the blanket higher.
In her mind, she’d drafted four separate messages to Beenan and Sol-Arc Industries, requesting reinstatement. The first was professional and contrite. The second was long, rambling, and a little desperate. The third was adversarial and demanding. The fourth was just the wordplease.
She sent none of them.
When her mind went soft, it wandered to more pleasant time, like swimming in the pools. If only she’d carved out more time down there. The mineralized water had felt wonderful on her skin. The soft light, and Rasker moving through the water like a being that belonged in that element. It had been beautiful to witness, as much as being carried through it in his arms had been.Thatwas magic.
And then there was the festival. The cupcakes selling faster than she could frost them. The Gardran traveler who closed all four of his eyes. Mish’s children dancing in the lounge, weird and synchronized and beautiful. Harry leaning toward Vittor with a light in his face she’d never seen. Alyce dancing after drinking a glass of wine. The woman in the flight suit who’d said she’d be a customer whenever she was in the sector.
Her mind drifted,again, to the night after. Rasker’s hands and his mouth and the way he’d saidonly if you want toand meant it. She had never felt more at home anywhere in her life since living with her parents as a child. The station, the people, the man. All of it had fit, the way a key fits a lock, the way she had never fit at Sol-Arc no matter how hard she tried.
And then there was how easily Rasker had left. How quickly the consultant had replaced the man she’d fallen in love with. How his face had gone still and professional and blank when she’d told him she was selling, and how he’d said,I’ll be in touch with your lawyer,as if the past weeks had been a transaction that was finally reaching its natural conclusion.
She pulled the blanket over her head.
Luv’s squeaky rollerball announced her arrival before she spoke. The sound moved from the sitting room into the bedroom doorway and stopped.
“I’m here for Bean,” Luv said.
Holly didn’t move.
“It’s his evening walk. I’ll need you to unbury the dog, please. He’s somewhere in that pile of blankets and self-pity.”
Bean’s nose emerged from the bedding near Holly’s hip. His tail gave a single, tentative wag.
“There he is.” Luv rolled closer. “Come on, you little menace. Let’s go.”
Bean didn’t move. He looked at Holly, then at Luv, then back at Holly, clearly weighing his loyalty against his bladder.
“Go on, Babybean,” Holly murmured in a rusty voice, using one of the dozen nicknames that had manifested since becoming his person.
Bean wriggled free of the blankets and jumped down from the bed. Luv clipped the leash to his collar, then turned her optical sensors back to Holly.
“You need to get up,” Luv said. “Go outside. Get some air, even if it smells like a recycling plant.”
“I’m fine.”
