Chapter 28
ALAINA
The silence is unbearable.
Not the sweet kind—the quiet after a baby falls asleep on your chest, or when rain ticks softly against the window. No. This is the ugly, suffocating kind. The kind that sinks teeth into your skin and makes every clock tick sound like a threat.
I sit at the bar, elbows braced on sticky laminate, pretending to count drink orders, but my compad’s screen hasn’t lit up in hours. I haven’t turned off notifications—I just haven’t gotten any.
Not from him.
Not since the note.
“You look like death microwaved twice,” Jorla mutters, slamming a mug down in front of me. “Drink. It’s got fruit in it. That makes it healthy.”
“I’m working.”
“No, honey,” she says, leveling a sharp look at me. “You’re moping. And you’re scaring the regulars.”
“Good. Maybe they’ll tip better out of pity.”
She snorts and leans her elbow beside mine. “You gonna tell me what happened, or do I need to start guessing wildly and involving Reapers?”
I shoot her a glare, but it’s weak. “He left.”
“Yeah? And?”
I blink. “And that’s it. He’s gone. Took Caelix with him. Left me a data chip like I’m some tragic footnote in a war journal.”
Jorla eyes me like I just farted in an airlock. “You’re leaving out a few dozen key details. Try again.”
I sigh. My hands scrub over my face. “It wasn’t like… abandonment. It was—ugh. It was more like—like a retreat. Like he’d been fighting to stay and finally hit the point where my bullshit outgunned him.”
“He’s the father. You know it. I know it. The kid’s horn nubs know it.”
Work becomes noise. Customers become shadows. Caelix’s laughter is the only thing that cuts through the fog.
I catch him chewing on the stupid plush frog Troka brought back from Xenthra IV and my heart caves in on itself like bad insulation.
Every little thing reminds me of him.
The extra-large cooking gloves he used because my mitts don’t fit his claws.
The bent kitchen stool where he’d sit too close just to touch knees.
The towel he hung on the back of the door that still smells like his body wash—spiced something and ozone and the weird salt-and-metal scent of Vakutan skin.
Even the damn broken hinge on the under-sink cabinet, which he fixed three times before giving up and bolting it shut like it owed him money.
I can’t escape him.
And I don’t want to.
Which might be the worst part.
I try to distract myself. I rearrange the kitchen cabinets. Again. I alphabetize the formula containers. I teach Caelix to say "banana" in three languages. He still says "boonah-nah" and it makes my chest ache with love and guilt in equal parts.
I sit on the floor with him while he stacks blocks, and out of nowhere he points to the door and says, “Dada.”
My heart stops.
He’s never said that before.
I freeze. “What did you say, bug?”
“Dada,” he says again, grinning like it’s a joke we’re both in on.
I want to cry.
I want to scream.
I want to break a thousand ceramic mugs and glue the pieces into a mural of all the stupid decisions I’ve made in my life.
The next night, Jorla invites me out for drinks.
I say no. Then she shows up at my door with a bottle and a “get your ass dressed” look that brooks no argument.
We end up at some dive where the music is half-static and the bartender looks like he models in crime scene holos.
I nurse my drink like it’s going to whisper answers in my ear.
“You think he’s coming back?” I ask, voice brittle.
Jorla shrugs. “Vakutans don’t play games. If he said come find him, he meant it.”
“But where? He said I’d know.”
Her eyes narrow. “You do. You just don’t want to admit it.”
I sip. Swallow. Grit my teeth.
“There’s this outpost,” I whisper. “Top of the canyon ridge. Place he used to go when he needed to think. Said it reminded him of home—rocky, harsh, no distractions. He took me there once. Said the wind made his head feel clear.”
“There’s your answer.”
I laugh, but it’s hollow. “And what? I just show up with our son and an apology in my back pocket like a damn holo-drama climax?”
“You show up with the truth. You let him see you.”
“And if he doesn’t want to hear it?”
Jorla finishes her drink and stands. “Then at least you’ll know you didn’t run. You didn’t stay silent. You didn’t let love die in the dark.”
That night, I lay awake, tracing circles on the edge of Caelix’s blanket.
I open the compad.
My fingers hover over his name.
I don’t press it.
But I write the message.
Not to send. Just to get it out.
“I was scared. Not of you. Of what you make me feel. Of how good you are with him. Of how much I wanted it to be true—and how much I knew it was. He’s yours, Troka. He always was. And I’m afraid that accepting you will drive you away again.”
I don’t delete it.
I don’t send it, either.
I just leave it there.
Like a lit match.
Waiting.
Because secrets don’t whisper forever.
They scream when you least expect them.
And the silence in this apartment?
It’s getting louder by the second.