“He just thinks things need to be preserved—”
“The galaxy is changing, Arie,” he interrupted. He’d just turned eighteen two months earlier, and the itch to break things and smear his name across the galaxy had grown so big, he could barely contain it anymore. “If we don’t change with it,we’llbe relics, too.”
“Is that what those weirdos told you on the way down to that Imperial walker?” I asked. “To get you to play along?”
He narrowed his eyes. “They said you wouldn’t get it.”
“Theysaid?” I echoed, eyebrows high. “You talked about me?”
“They asked what you thought about it all.”
“Did you tell them that I thought it was reckless?”
He shook his head. “Sure, it was a bad decision to take them down there, okay? Of course it was. But I wanted to see it, too. You can only experience so much by looking out of a viewport, you know. It’s like Dad wants to put himself in a bubble and trapusthere, too.” As he said it, I could see the realization begin to flicker across his face. “This ship’s a cage, Arie. Can’t you see it?”
“It’s home,” I insisted.
“It’s a prison,” he snapped, “and I’mdonetelling other people’s stories.”
“So you want to run away to be in one,” I said. My voice was cold, much like my tea was becoming.
He raised his gaze to mine and held it. There was a defiant gleam in his eyes. “I want to do something with my life,” he said, seeming to give in to the idea that had wormed into his brain and was now growing, feasting on all the what-ifs the galaxy had to offer. “There’s stuff happening out there in the Unknown Regions. There’re sightings of stormtroopers more and more often. There’re cities getting taken over. The war’s not over, no matter what anyone thinks. No matter what Dad thinks. I can do something, Arie. Iwantto do something.”
“But what about Dad?”And me?I wanted to add, but pursed my lips together so I didn’t, afraid the admission would make me feel small.
He turned his head away, quiet. Then he said, “You’ll be here.”
And that was what made me angry. That he knew he could leave, because I wouldn’t—even if Iwantedto. I had to stay, because Dad would be alone otherwise. Val knew he’d trap me here if he left, just like he was afraid of being trapped himself.
Heat flickered in my middle. I clutched my cup tightly.“Fine,”I snapped. “Go. Do your thing.Whatever!We’ll be fine without you.”
“Arie—”
I shoved myself to my feet. My untouched tea sloshed over the lip, but it was cold as I left the galley.
That was the last thing I had ever said to him.
No goodbye.
No “I love you.”
Just…Go.We’ll be fine without you.
And wewerefine; wewouldbefine, but…
That didn’t mean I felt any less guilty for being the reason he’d left in the first place. Maybe if I hadn’t picked a fight, hadn’t planted that idea in his head, he’d have cooled off and stayed. It was my fault, I thought.
Just like Mom.
But…
But here Valor was, like he’d just popped out for an errand and come back. And for a second, I could trick myself into believing that he had. That I was still that naive fifteen-year-old with my nose buried in serials and my eyes turned to the stars, and Iachedfor that girl.
He grinned in that sheepish way of his that I remembered too fondly, though it looked different on his grown face, so changed from the boy who’d fled three years ago. If it wasn’t for the tilt at the corner of his mouth, I wasn’t sure I could convince myself that it really was him. He’d grown into his once-awkward height, almost as broad as Dad now. There was a new scar over his left eyebrow, andhis skin was a bit darker from some distant planet’s hard sun, his freckles deep like ink.
I stood there with my mouth agape. I didn’t know what else to do.
“Hey, snotface,” he greeted, that familiar grin curling higher into a smile, and it was so familiar that my heart leapt into my throat. The brief shimmer of anger in my belly gave way to joy.
