Chapter 33 Immeasurably
Immeasurably
The next morning, I’m up before Tanisira, my stomach rolling with nerves.
I feel like Vee, like there are ants under my skin.
I don’t want to wake her up with my fidgeting, so I head for the kitchen.
As I’m closing the living room door behind me, Kiran’s door opens halfway down the hall.
And who should emerge, but Beau Bouchard?
My jaw drops. They haven’t seen me—I’m treated to the image of them trying to shut the door quietly and then turning to tiptoe away.
The snort I let out catches their attention.
Beau slowly turns around, dread set into every line of their face.
It only lightens a smidge when they realise it’s me.
I raise an eyebrow. They put their hands together in a mimicry of supplication and squeeze their eyes shut.
Beau, in socked feet and bedhead, looks on the verge of booking it. I give in, smile and make a shooing gesture. It’s none of my business.
Beau escapes the house as I brew a pot of coffee and nab a leftover pastry. It’s just past five am, and the sunrise is a strange and pale beauty on the horizon. With my mug steaming up a section of the window, I stare out at the beautiful city below.
What am I going to do?
My resistance to going home isn’t because I want to stay here, as lovely as it is.
Suryavana’s gorgeous and peaceful, and it’d be a nice life.
But I find myself experimenting with the image of a future with Vee and Tanisira, on a ship filled with laughter and love.
It just isn’t a feasible one. Vee’s school, his friends, his whole life is on Telluria.
I know better than most how damaging it can be to a child when your parents move you all over the place and take you away from everything you know.
I’ll ask Vee, but I think he’ll want to go home.
Picturing the Homebound leaving us behind, saying goodbye, is painful. A groan of frustration fogs the window in front of me. Sometimes, I hate being the adult.
I think of Tanisira, who’s always had to be the adult, and sober up a little.
Speaking of the devil, she comes schlepping into the kitchen, a huge yawn cracking her jaw, and starts making tea.
“Morning,” she croaks.
I stifle a smile and take over, gesturing for her to sit.
It’s the least I can do; she did such a thorough job of keeping me out of my head last night.
I have bruises on my hips, and she’s got bite marks on her shoulder from where I tried to be quiet.
I slip the mug in front of her, heat a pastry because she likes them warm, and then climb into her lap and curl up like a baby.
I have no defences today.
Tanisira laughs, low and deep, the sound rumbling through my back. “Okay then.”
I say nothing, just hand her the tea and make myself smaller so she can reach around me when she’s ready to.
Unsurprisingly, we slept heavily, and there was little cuddling in the face of that.
In fact, I woke up in the same position I fell asleep in, which is always a sign I’m bone tired.
The RIND is a negative feedback loop; the more I exhaust myself, the worse I feel, and the worse I feel, the easier it is to exhaust myself.
Super fun.
We sit in comfortable silence until Yimirisé bustles in, grabs a coffee and heads out to open the bakery, flashing a sweet smile our way.
Kiran comes along soon after, packs some leftovers for lunch and blows us kisses on her way out the door.
I’m a little scared of her after some of the things she sent her ex—she just looks so innocent.
Still, the two have a happy little life here.
“Are you happy?” I murmur into Tanisira’s collarbone.
She tilts my head up so she can search my face. Her own softens as she speaks, breath honeyed with sugar. “Immeasurably.”
I exhale deeply, grab my courage by the balls. “What’s going to happen now?”
I know Tanisira has probably been thinking about this just as much as I have; she doesn’t look as dejected as I feel, though.
It takes some doing to not let that annoy me.
Given my anxiety, it’d be easy to let my pain out in unhelpful ways, maybe cause an argument, some cathartic storming out.
What a massive waste of time that would be. Would feel good in the moment, though.
Sometimes, communicating honestly is like being dragged over a cheese grater, and I hate it.
“We still have time to figure that out.”
“No.” I shake my head. “We don’t.”
“Okay, listen—”
“Vee and I have to go home. I just—”
Tanisira takes my hands and places them on her shoulders, so I’m forced to twist in her lap and straddle her. She holds my gaze fiercely.
“Listen, please.”
I nod, caught in her eyes.
“I bought the Homebound as a last-minute escape route, but it wouldn’t have been my first choice. I’m glad I did because who knows how much longer I’d have continued to put it off? I plan to get us set up in legitimate transport, upgrade the ship and build from there. But that’s not my dream.”
I frown. “But you said you always wanted a ship of your own.”
“I did. I do. The Homebound isn’t it. As soon as I can, I’ll buy the ship I always wanted and give it the name it deserves.”
The Kyena. She’d whispered it to me one night as I was curled up in her arms and practically made me swear a vow of silence.
“I’ll promote someone else to captain the Homebound—Beau, if they’re interested in training—and I’ll be free to make my own schedule.”
I gasp. “Wait.”
I trace her blossoming smile with my thumb, and she speaks around it.
“If you take a chance on us, we’ll make it work.
It’s not going to be easy, especially at first; I’ll be away for long stretches, and we could lose comms periodically.
But if you give me time, I’ll make my way back to you, bit by bit. ”
“You can’t mean that,” I say, stunned. “This is what you do.”
“And I’ll continue to do it, on my own time, in my own way.” She shrugs. “When Vee’s no longer in school, maybe he can learn to captain the Kyena.”
A heart shouldn’t feel as fragile as mine, swollen and tender as pride. I’m not going to cry.
“You know that’s eight years away, right?”
She quirks a brow. “According to you, eight years is nothing.”
That pulls a laugh out of me, even though my pulse is stuttering and my hands are threatening to sweat.
“What if you get tired of going weeks, months without—”
“What if you do?” she shoots back.
I’m grown enough to know life is unpredictable, and there are no guarantees except death and taxes. But I can’t see myself wanting anyone else.
I chew on my lip. “Are you really signing on for my kid?”
“I adore your kid. I love your kid. I think I’ve proven I’d do anything for your kid.”
I think Tanisira is the only person, second to Vee, who has ever made me smile so much.
If you asked her, I don’t think she’d agree, but she constantly makes me laugh without even trying; she’s just so earnest where other people often aren’t.
Smiling now, I slide my hands up from her shoulders and cup her neck on either side.
I look, look hard, for any trace of hesitation in her expression, in the curve of her mouth and the gleam of her eyes.
She’s serious.
“What I’m hearing is that we have less than two weeks to have as much sex as possible, eat as many pastries as we can and take as many walks as we can stand before those things become fewer and farther in between.”
She chuckles, fingers curling around my waist so I don’t go flying off her lap.
“Coming home to you is going to be the highlight of my trips.”
Butterflies take flight in my stomach. “Did you just invite yourself into my humble abode?”
“Technically, I live on my ship,” she says slyly. “But by now, I’ve accepted wherever you are is where home will be.”
“You’re so cheesy.” I couldn’t play it cool even if I wanted to. I kiss the corner of her mouth, leave my lips pressed to her skin. It wants out, so I let it. “I love you, Captain Sekmith.”
“Ya’esh te.”
There is so much depth in the words, so much emotion woven around them that I don’t have to ask for a translation.
“Is this insane?” I murmur into her neck. “How can you love me? You don’t even know me. I know how I feel about you, but I’m a mess, so...”
She’s laughing even as she wraps me up in her arms and rests her chin on my head. “I know you, valeja. You’re not so good at hiding the soft parts as you think you are. You showed me who you were the moment you snuck onto my ship. And again, and again, and again.”
And of course, whilst I worry about the efficacy of being loved, Tanisira just throws herself into it like the adrenaline junkie she is. She’s really with me, willing to give us a go.
Getting Hina on the phone is not as easy as she made it out to be.
Her secretary arranges a callback when she’s free but can’t promise that it’ll be before late afternoon.
Tanisira takes me and Vee on a tour of the city to pass the time.
We bring Tano with us, and I try not to worry too much about Vee getting attached to a dog we absolutely cannot bring home.
In Suryavana, it’s Firsttide, the start of their year and the beginning of spring.
Signs of it are everywhere, with a mural of the canyon’s founding nestled between blooming trees of lavender coloured buds, and the air fragrant with flowers.
From there, we visit the Domeheart, which stretches up into the sky: an angular building made up of clear hexagonal panels and covered in living plants.
We get off the maglev and pass through an expansive arch, into the Grand Concourse where we can better see the Kora Spire nestled in the Domeheart.