Chapter 6 6

We sleep.

Repeat.

My father is a simple man, but he is reliable.

I look up at him as I chew. His eyes remain fixed on the cracked tableware.

His eyes are gray where mine are pale blue. His nose is round where mine is narrow. His jaw square, where mine is more heart-shaped.

Our only common feature is our dirty blonde hair, but you wouldn't know it now. His has turned silver over the last five solars.

I wonder, as I always have, if I got all of my features from my mother. If I look like her.

When I was old enough to ask why I didn't have a mother when all my friends did, he told me that she died when I was a baby. That it was a construction accident.

They're common on Korpillion, where they constantly have to build higher and bigger to keep up with the growing population.

I hate that this suffocating planet took her from me before I ever had a chance to know and remember her.

"I was thinking," I say as I push the last bite of tasteless food into my mouth. "I have enough saved up now. We should start planning that trip to the coast."

Dad's eyes rise to meet mine and his brows furrow. "With prices of lodging and food on the coast, you'd have to save up for a solar to be able to afford it. Places like the coast aren't for people like us."

He doesn't say it cruelly or spitefully. He says it with resolve. Like it's so far out of reach, the thought is instantly out of his mind again.

"That's the thing," I say, leaning forward and crossing my arms on the table. "I have been saving up for a long while. We have all our bills paid up. We have no debt now. I think we can afford to experience a little comfort and fun."

He gives me a little smile. "That sounds nice, Nova. I'll think about it." But I see it in his eyes, and I know him well enough that I know he really won't think about it.

We work. We eat together. We sleep. We start it all over again.

I give him a little smile that I know doesn't reach my eyes. But I can't find it in me to fight him, to argue and beg. So I pat his hand, and stand to clear and wash the dishes.

With the routine of the day complete and the world growing dark outside, I take the three steps to my bedroom and close the door.

Plain white walls, small bed, even smaller desk. A wardrobe holds the eight different sets of clothes I own. An extra pair of shoes is in the bottom of it.

There is no room for excess on Korpillion.

There is no room for extra children-one per family is regulation. Children are to live with their parents until they marry. There aren't enough housing units on the planet to bend the rules.

I flip the lights off and lay back on my bed, letting my eyes slide closed.

I can feel the connection. Like a little wormhole that goes directly from my brain to his. It's as easy to open as it is to close my eyes.

"Do you ever feel like your life is just going to suck you into an abyss and you're going to simply cease to exist, because it's all the same, over and over, every single day?"

I send the words down in a rush, like liquid spilling down a slide.

"Bad day?" his voice comes through, clear as day.

I let out a breath, and somehow, I know he can hear it. "No." I flop one arm over my eyes. "That's the thing, it was exactly like every other day."

He's quiet for a moment. And for yet another time, I try to picture him. Is his hair dark or light? Is he tall or short? How old is he? What color are his eyes?

"There's something to be said about the comfort of routine," he responds. "We only miss it when it's gone and life is suddenly chaos."

"Sure," I say, because I know the moments of panic that break things up. Like when I got a call four lunars ago that my father had broken his arm and needed emergency surgery. I'd rushed from work and met him at the infirmary. My heart had been in my throat the whole time. I didn't like the feeling of panic.

"But I can't say I particularly feel alive these days." I say the words, and hearing them spoken in my own head, it's like a rounding chorus, repeating the words and the feeling, over and over and over again.

"But you won't leave your planet because of your father." He states the reason I've given him in the past.

My stomach twists. "I just feel stuck."

"If only we could mesh our two lives," he says. "I could use a little more normalcy. Some boring downtime. And you could use some of this chaos and impulse."

"What part of the galaxy are you in now?" I ask. I don't expect an answer, because we never talk details-names, places.

"Just outside a gas planet in the S3 system."

He shocks me when he answers with a simple, direct answer.

"You're not that far away," I say, and to my surprise, a little smile pulls on my lips. "I'm in the U9 system."

I hear him give a little amused sound, and it widens my smile. "Still light years apart, and yet you consider this 'not that far away.'"

Now I chuckle. "It's just the modern galaxy we live in."

It's true. Inter-solar travel has never been faster. If I had the credits, I could get on a ship and be to the S3 system in seven days.

"All this science does come with its miracles," he muses.

We're both quiet for a moment. I roll onto my side, my back facing the door and my boring, mundane reality.

"Have you ever thought about it?" I ask. "We've been connected in this insane, impossible, crazy intimate way for lunars now, but if we ever saw each other on the street, we wouldn't even recognize each other."

He's quiet for a beat, and for a second I'm worried I've said something too personal, too intimate.

"I don't think you'd like me in real life," he says, though it's quiet, regretful.

"Why?" I ask.

But he doesn't respond with words. I just get this...impression. This darker, self-depreciating taste on my tongue.

"You act like I don't know you," I say, hugging my pillow into my chest. "Like I haven't learned anything about you in these lunars we've been connected."

"You hear my voice," he says. "But you're missing so much else. There's a lot more to a person than what they say."