it was a deficient id—”
“No, it’s fine, it was just me. I guess I’m not used to running.”
I start down the tunnel at a slower pace this time, Michael beside me. An awkward silence falls. Maybe I’m not really Lia, but I suddenly wish I were.
Lia
would know what to do right now.
Lia
would know what to say.
Beside me, I can feel Michael’s gaze on my cheek, as tangible as a touch. I summon up a smile for him, something to smooth over the strangeness. It slips from my face, though, as I catch sight of his expression, pensive and intent. “What?”
He stares at me awhile longer. “It’s just . . .” he begins, then shakes his head. “Nothing.”
I shouldn’t ask, but I do anyway. “What is it?”
“It’s just sometimes it’s almost like you’re two people. At times, you’re just Lia, the girl I knew back on Aurora, and then others it becomes clear you’re someone completely different.”
He knows.
My heart freezes at the realization. Somehow he figured it out. He knows I’m not Lia.
“All this time I’ve been trying to pretend you’re just my friend from Aurora,” Michael continues, “only you’re not her anymore. Or at least, not just her. You’re also the Lia who watched her parents die, the one who spent two years in an internment camp. This Lia I don’t know at all.”
So he didn’t figure it out after all. I mentally breathe a sigh of relief until he adds, “You know, you haven’t talked about it even once. What it was like living in the internment camp, losing your parents.”
My mouth goes dry. This is the part where I’m supposed to bare my soul to Michael. To tell him all my painful memories about the attack on my home and living as a prisoner and losing everyone I ever loved. Only I can’t tell him any of this because it’s not my past to reveal; it’s not my pain to share. You can’t tell what you don’t know. Even as I make a half-hearted reach for Lia’s memories, I already know what I will find.
My name is Lia Johansen, and I was a prisoner of war.
“I can’t tell you,” I finally say, because I have no other answer.
“Oh.” Michael nods and doesn’t say anything else, but I can sense his hurt at being so summarily shut out. I remember the way he talked about his parents before, the way he shared his fears about being drafted, and I feel a twinge of shame that I can’t return the confidence. That I can’t be to him what he is to me. Not that I’m even sure what that is.
We walk in silence for a while longer.
“A power relay blew at Tiersten yesterday,” I say suddenly, the words floating up from nowhere. “I saw it on the news. It wrecked the entire spaceport, turned it into a cinder from the inside out.”
Michael stops, stunned. “Oh my God, Lia! Was anyone hurt?”
“They said there were casualties, but they didn’t say how many.”
“Are you okay? You must have known people there.”
“No, no one that I—”
Remember
, I was about to say, and settle for, “I mean, not anymore. But if it had blown just weeks earlier, who knows? Maybe I would have been there. Maybe I would have been one of th—”
“Well, it didn’t,” Michael interrupts fiercely, “and you weren’t there.”
“Maybe not this time, but what if that’s my fate anyway? What if there’s nothing more to my life than to die in a fiery blast, no family, no friends, nothing to leave behind?”
I didn’t mean to say this. I didn’t even know I was thinking it! The words just crawled up on their own from some small, cold place inside of me, and I find I’m no longer speaking for Michael or even Lia. I’m speaking for myself.
His warm hand takes mine. “That’s not the way it’ll be,” Michael says, his words echoing through the passage, confident and secure. “It’s not your fate to die friendless and alone.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because you have me.”
That simple statement, so matter-of-fact and assured, touches something deep
“No, it’s fine, it was just me. I guess I’m not used to running.”
I start down the tunnel at a slower pace this time, Michael beside me. An awkward silence falls. Maybe I’m not really Lia, but I suddenly wish I were.
Lia
would know what to do right now.
Lia
would know what to say.
Beside me, I can feel Michael’s gaze on my cheek, as tangible as a touch. I summon up a smile for him, something to smooth over the strangeness. It slips from my face, though, as I catch sight of his expression, pensive and intent. “What?”
He stares at me awhile longer. “It’s just . . .” he begins, then shakes his head. “Nothing.”
I shouldn’t ask, but I do anyway. “What is it?”
“It’s just sometimes it’s almost like you’re two people. At times, you’re just Lia, the girl I knew back on Aurora, and then others it becomes clear you’re someone completely different.”
He knows.
My heart freezes at the realization. Somehow he figured it out. He knows I’m not Lia.
“All this time I’ve been trying to pretend you’re just my friend from Aurora,” Michael continues, “only you’re not her anymore. Or at least, not just her. You’re also the Lia who watched her parents die, the one who spent two years in an internment camp. This Lia I don’t know at all.”
So he didn’t figure it out after all. I mentally breathe a sigh of relief until he adds, “You know, you haven’t talked about it even once. What it was like living in the internment camp, losing your parents.”
My mouth goes dry. This is the part where I’m supposed to bare my soul to Michael. To tell him all my painful memories about the attack on my home and living as a prisoner and losing everyone I ever loved. Only I can’t tell him any of this because it’s not my past to reveal; it’s not my pain to share. You can’t tell what you don’t know. Even as I make a half-hearted reach for Lia’s memories, I already know what I will find.
My name is Lia Johansen, and I was a prisoner of war.
“I can’t tell you,” I finally say, because I have no other answer.
“Oh.” Michael nods and doesn’t say anything else, but I can sense his hurt at being so summarily shut out. I remember the way he talked about his parents before, the way he shared his fears about being drafted, and I feel a twinge of shame that I can’t return the confidence. That I can’t be to him what he is to me. Not that I’m even sure what that is.
We walk in silence for a while longer.
“A power relay blew at Tiersten yesterday,” I say suddenly, the words floating up from nowhere. “I saw it on the news. It wrecked the entire spaceport, turned it into a cinder from the inside out.”
Michael stops, stunned. “Oh my God, Lia! Was anyone hurt?”
“They said there were casualties, but they didn’t say how many.”
“Are you okay? You must have known people there.”
“No, no one that I—”
Remember
, I was about to say, and settle for, “I mean, not anymore. But if it had blown just weeks earlier, who knows? Maybe I would have been there. Maybe I would have been one of th—”
“Well, it didn’t,” Michael interrupts fiercely, “and you weren’t there.”
“Maybe not this time, but what if that’s my fate anyway? What if there’s nothing more to my life than to die in a fiery blast, no family, no friends, nothing to leave behind?”
I didn’t mean to say this. I didn’t even know I was thinking it! The words just crawled up on their own from some small, cold place inside of me, and I find I’m no longer speaking for Michael or even Lia. I’m speaking for myself.
His warm hand takes mine. “That’s not the way it’ll be,” Michael says, his words echoing through the passage, confident and secure. “It’s not your fate to die friendless and alone.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because you have me.”
That simple statement, so matter-of-fact and assured, touches something deep
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