Kal
All my life, I had wanted to find a place where I belonged. And now, I was pretty sure I had.
Except that wasn’t true. I had to remind myself of the truth over and over again.
This is not my home. I am a stranger here. This human isn’t mine, and I am not hers.
I was still on Earth by accident. As much as I felt like I belonged, I didn’t. I was a stranger and a visitor, nothing more.
Could I be something more here on Earth?
No. No. That’s not how things worked.
Even the most experienced terranauts stationed on Earth only stayed for several years before returning to Xaerea. I was playing a waiting game, and I shouldn’t think otherwise. It wouldn’t be much longer before a Xaerean ship came to collect me, to take me back to the planet where I grew up.
My home planet, but not my home.
It would be foolish to hope for a different outcome, and even I wasn’t fool enough to expect things would work out in my favor.
But it was getting harder and harder not to wish for it.
“It was so brave of you,” Lola’s mom said, gripping my head between her two small hands, “to leave Ohio.”
“Thank you?” I said, for lack of a better response.
“Mom!” Lola came into the kitchen and pried her mother’s hands from my face. “Let’s give Kal some breathing room, okay?” She tugged me gently by the wrist, so I stood beside her.
“We’re going to head out. Thank you for the…food.” Lola said the last word with a hint of hesitation and a squeeze to my wrist. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
And then we all said our goodbyes, which turned into a back-and-forth volley between Lola and her mom—the latter insisting she take the leftovers, and the former firmly turning them down.
“Mom, please,” Lola said, halfway out the door with me by her side, still trying to push the container of food back into her mother’s arms. “I’m a chef. I work in a restaurant. I don’t need more food.”
“Well, I’m your mother, Lollipop, and I say you do,” she said with finality, thrusting the container one last time.
Lola relented, mumbling thankyouIloveyougoodnight, as I watched on bemused. Truthfully, I didn’t understand half of what happened that evening, between the unusual food and the unfamiliar topics of conversation. But none of that seemed to matter.
I was accepted. I had been treated with patience and kindness. Even as an outsider, I was treated like someone who belonged.
And I was beginning to grow used to it—that was the dangerous part.
Lola led me across the yard, still holding onto my wrist, and up the stairs to her living quarters.
I was struck by how familiar the place felt to me now, after no time at all.
Even the smell was familiar now that I knew what it was.
Vanilla and sugar mixed with cinnamon. It smelled like Lola. It smelled like home.
I pulled my wrist from Lola’s grasp and rubbed at my chest. Why did it hurt suddenly? And why did I feel like I couldn’t breathe?
“Kal?” Lola asked, her voice full of concern. “What’s wrong?”
I pressed the button at the back of my neck and ripped at my suit, letting it fall around me in heavy folds. It didn’t help; the suit wasn’t the problem. Turning to a different method. I wrapped my arms and tentacles around myself, holding firm. A little better.
“Kal?”
A hand on my arm, soft and warm. Lola was whispering, “It’s okay. Whatever happened, it’ll be okay.”
I could feel her shifting my arms so she could wrap her own around me. I loosened my tentacles’ hold and let her in, both of us enveloped in a hug.
We stood like that for I’m not sure how long until Lola finally spoke again.
“Was it my family? I knew they could be a lot and I should have just…”
“It’s not that,” I whispered. I paused, trying to think of how to explain the sudden surge of emotions. How could I possibly explain how welcomed and accepted her family made me feel? How everyone I’d met made me feel like I was part of something bigger, not apart from it.
I landed on, “I was just thinking about Xaerea, my home planet.”
Lola’s embrace loosened just a fraction, and my tentacles tightened to make up for it.
“Are you homesick?” she asked.
I didn’t know this word, so I wasn’t sure how to answer. “What’s ‘homesick’?”
It took a moment for Lola to respond. I could feel her chest move against me as she breathed.
“It’s when you’re not home, but you long for it,” Lola said finally. “Like you know where you’re supposed to be, but you haven’t found your way back yet.”
I thought about that. I didn’t long for Xaerea, a place I never truly loved and that didn’t love me back. I didn’t think I felt homesick in that case.
But then I thought of the forest where my pod crash-landed, and the meadow just outside of it.
The mountains in the distance, woven through with mist. Flowers with butterflies and a stretch of road lined with manicured buildings and sidewalks and people—actual humans—laughing and smiling and spreading joy.
The smell of good food, warm cinnamon rolls. And Lola, of course.
And I said, “Yes. I think I might be homesick.”
For a home that was never mine to begin with, in a place that I haven’t left. But I know I will, sooner rather than later.
Lola’s breath hitched, and she pressed her forehead into my chest before gently wriggling out of our embrace.
I missed her immediately. Homesick.
Ending up on Earth wasn’t planned, and arriving in Roswell Falls was nothing more than a pure accident. Yet some part of myself had come to believe it was destined to happen. But it wasn’t, was it?
I needed to stop lying to myself and to Lola.
“I wasn’t supposed to come here,” I said into the quiet room. “To Earth, I mean. It was an accident.”
Lola cocked her head. “How do you accidentally travel to another planet?”
“It’s a long story.”
Lola’s hands came to rest on my shoulders. She looked up at me, considering.
“Actually, it’s not long at all,” I said. “But I don’t want you to think of me any differently after you hear it.”
“It can’t be that bad, Kal,” she insisted, shoving lightly at my shoulder.
But it was. How could I tell Lola that the entire reason I stepped on that travel pod in the first place was a fluke? That I had failed up into a position where no one even wanted me, and immediately proved them right for not wanting me?
The entire story of me ending up on Earth was one big comedy of errors. Nothing more, nothing less.
I wanted to explain my story to Lola the best way I knew how. From the beginning. I wanted Lola to understand all of me—to know all of me. To accept all of me for who I was. Lola had shown me parts of the world I never would have learned about without her as a guide.
Food, obviously. And friendship. How humans live their day-to-day lives. How they think, feel, love. It was this last one that I knew I would always treasure most, even after going back to my planet. I had gotten to learn about love, about friendship and belonging—and I saw it in action.
These things were so natural for humans that you could almost forget they were extraordinary. Something worth paying attention to.
“I’m not very popular where I come from,” I said slowly, avoiding her eyes. “I’m kind of…an outcast, I think you would call it. A loser.”
“Oh, come on.” Lola’s small hands ghosted down my arms and stayed there. “I don’t believe that for one second.”
“It’s true, though. My people, Xaereans, they’re very serious. Very rigid and exacting. And I’m…not. I don’t know how to be one of them, I guess. And that gets me in a lot of trouble.” I motioned around us. “Like stranded on Earth.”
Lola’s face scrunched into a scowl. “But that doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “You’re kind. Thoughtful. Compassionate. I lo—” Lola’s voice cracked, and she swallowed. “I love those things about you.”
I felt breathless. I couldn’t let Lola think I was special; I wasn’t special at all. Whatever positive impressions Lola had of me, I knew they wouldn’t last once she got to know me better. They never did.
“You don’t even know me,” I said.
Lola reeled back, her face a mask of dismay. “So you think I don’t know what I’m talking about,” she retorted. “That I’m wrong? Or maybe you just think you’re not worthy of kindness. Is that it?”
I was startled by the ferocity of her reaction. Her words stung.
“No, I—”
“Well, it’s got to be one of those!” Lola insisted.
Tears fell from the corners of her eyes, and I watched them helplessly. This was my fault, too.
“I’ve known a lot of bad people in my life—and a lot of good ones, too,” she said. “I might not always get it right, but usually I do. And in this case, I know I’ve got it right. If you want to disagree with me, it’s got to be because you think I’m stupid, I’m gullible, or that you’re not worthy.”
Lola looked at me, intent. “So, which is it, Kal?”
My vision blurred around the edges as I tried to regain control.
I was just trying to be honest. I wanted Lola to understand the truth of me.
That I was the problem. I had always been the problem, and that would never change.
Those qualities she mentioned—they didn’t matter on Xaerea, so they shouldn’t matter to me. But they did. They really did.
“I don’t think you’re stupid or gullible,” I said too loud for the small space. My eyes squeezed shut as I tried to regain my composure and stop the world from spinning.
Lola’s next words were as softly spoken as they were devastating to hear. “So you think you’re not worthy of love.”
What could I say other than the truth? I kept my eyes closed and simply said, “Yes.”
And then Lola’s arms were wrapping around my neck and her soft body was dragging me into a hug that almost made me lose my center of gravity. But her arms were anchors; they grounded me.
“But you are,” Lola whispered against my neck. “Everyone is.”
And then she was kissing me again. I returned the kiss, slow and gentle. Her cheeks were wet, and her lips tasted of salt, and there was that feeling again, unsettled and wistful, like this was exactly where I was meant to be, but at any moment it could disappear.
I pulled back and swiped a thumb across Lola’s cheek. She smiled at me, thin and small, and curled a lock of my hair around her finger.
“I want to show you something,” Lola said eventually.
I followed Lola down the narrow hallway, where she led me into a room. There was a bed with a mess of covers, and she sat down on the edge of it and patted the spot next to her.
“Sit.”
I sat down beside her.
“Lie back.”
I lay back.
The mattress shifted as Lola got up. The room went completely dark when she turned off the overhead light.
Then: a constellation of stars across the ceiling, hazy yellows, blues and pinks sprinkled with bright pinpricks of light.
Another shift, and I could feel Lola’s arm brush against mine as she lay down next to me.
“It’s a lamp,” Lola said after a moment.
Her finger came to rest on the inside of my wrist. “My dad got it for me when I was younger, and I’ve kept it ever since.
” She paused. “I’ve always loved looking up at the stars.
It made me feel small, but like, in a good way, you know?
Like I wasn’t alone. Like even if I messed something up, it didn’t matter that much in the whole scheme of things. ”
Sometimes when I looked out at the stars, I would feel awe that the universe was so big, so full of infinite possibilities. But it also made me feel lonely. How, in all the galaxies in all the universe, I had ended up in a place where I didn’t quite fit.
“I like that,” I said after giving it some thought.
My tentacle curled loosely around Lola’s shoulder, and she shimmied closer.
“Which part?” Lola asked.
“Not feeling alone.”
I could feel Lola’s head move as she nodded. “Isn’t it incredible?” she asked in a whisper.
I let my head fall to the side, taking in Lola’s profile as she stared up at the ceiling. The colors danced across her face.
“So incredible.”
Lola turned to me then and smiled. I pulled her closer and tucked her into my side as we both drifted to sleep.
* * *
It took me some time to realize what was wrong. I was asleep and then I wasn’t, but I didn’t know what had pulled me out of it. Opening my eyes and then closing them again, I waited.
A noise—that’s what woke me up.
I untangled my limbs from Lola and slinked out of her bed to follow the sound. On the pads of my feet, I made my way to the living room. There, by the couch, was my pack. I could hear a quiet crackling.
Not now, I pleaded. Not yet.
My blood went cold as I reached inside the pack. I pulled out the broken comms deck and stared at it. Not so broken after all.
There was another loud crackle, followed by, “Do you copy?”
A pause, and I said nothing. I could hardly breathe.
This is a recorded message for Kalexdyorn Tirinn, identification number 01672. Kalexdyorn Tirinn, a mission is on its way to collect you. It will arrive in seven Earth days. At that time, you will be escorted by an envoy to a mission ship with a destination for Xaerea. Do you copy?
I didn’t respond. But I heard the message loud and clear.