Chapter 11
CORA
So, I thought about it, and the thing was…
I couldn’t tell if I was saying no because I thought that I should say no, or because I actually wanted to.
Sometimes you can disagree with your parents very strongly, and still somehow internalize some of their beliefs.
I cared enough about being open-minded and compassionate that I held my ground even when it meant they wouldn’t speak to me, but was there still a small part of me that didn’t want to make that rift permanent? Probably.
But I had something in common with all the daernir males on BMM, and that was loneliness.
I had no one to count on, and that was scary enough to drive me to sell my attention to aliens.
I just didn’t expect to enjoy their company so much.
And why were they so much easier to connect with than humans in general?
If I met human Qhev and human Yiri? Oh boy.
My life would be a lot more exciting. But…
it could be that exciting, couldn’t it? I’d have not just two new people in my life, but a whole new world to learn about and explore.
New cultures, new stars to look up at at night.
So after a night of no sleep at all, I did the dumbest thing I could possibly have done. I drove three hours to the EotE compound, where my parents lived under the watchful eye of Ricky.
“I’m here to see Tom and Donna Keaton,” I said at the gate. “I’m their daughter.”
I was allowed through the gate, but only a few yards to a small building reminiscent of an outhouse, where I was told to wait for Mom and Dad. It took thirty minutes, and I was almost coming to my senses, ready to leave, when the door opened.
Tom and Donna had changed a lot in the last two years since I’d seen them. Their hair had gotten grayer and a lot longer. They wore matching work boots, jeans, and brown long-sleeved shirts. Even their ponytails matched, and so did the distrustful scowls on their faces.
“Did you come to repent?” Mom’s voice was as waspish as ever. I guessed some things hadn’t changed.
“Uh, no. I wanted to talk,” I said.
“We have nothing to say if you’re still supporting the abominations happening in the world,” Dad said.
“Do you ever miss me?” I asked. They stared back at me, but I pressed on. “Do you think about me and wonder how I’m doing? If I’m okay? Happy?”
“Of course you aren’t okay,” Dad said. “You’re living out there, giving up your rights and bowing down to the alien overlords.”
“Okay, but I didn’t give up my entire savings and retirement,” I said. “I can come and go as I please. I don’t have to run it by Ricky before I make a phone call. I’m not sure what rights you think you have in here.”
“The right to our humanity!” Mom said, balling her fists. “You’re so determined to rebel against us that you can’t even see the wrongness of the life you’re living.”
“What am I doing that’s so wrong?” I shouldn’t have asked. Stupid when I already knew the long list of things she would say.
“Let’s start with your whorish clothes,” Mom said, waving her hand up and down my body.
I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. It was hot out. It was hardly whorish.
“Okay,” I said. “This is going off the rails fast. I just thought you might like to know that I’m thinking about getting married. But I guess that was dumb of me. Why would you care now?”
“Well, at least you’re not leaving the planet,” Dad said, sounding deceptively reasonable, if totally incorrect. “What does your fiancé think of all this alien stuff?”
I couldn’t hold in my bark of laughter. “Uh…well, he’s into it. Because, you know, he’s one of them. So. There’s that.”
Mom shrieked and tore out of the little one-room building, running away across the compound. Dad stood, tight-lipped and seething in front of me for a long, silent moment while Mom’s screams echoed in the distance. Dad shook his head after a moment and turned to go.
“Don’t come back here, Cora,” he said. “You’re dead to us.”
I watched him go with a tight ball of string unraveling in my belly.
With every step he took out of my life, I felt a little less tangled up inside.
Less conflicted. More free. It still hurt, of course.
I’m not made of stone. Being disowned by my parents hurt.
But we’d had worse fights in the past, more hateful words spoken between us. At least this had some finality to it.
I left the compound and drove back into the nearest town before it really hit me.
You’re dead to us. How could a father say that to his daughter?
His own flesh and blood? I made off easy where mom was concerned.
She might have called my outfit whorish and run away screaming, but that was far from the worst she was capable of.
I pulled into a gas station and parked the car.
I felt like I might cry for a few minutes, but the tears didn’t come.
Mom and Dad cut me out of their lives a long time ago.
I always kind of thought they would eventually come to their senses, but what if they didn’t?
And honestly, what if they did? Could I just let bygones be bygones and work my ass off to pay for their care in old age after they squandered their retirement on a cult and treated me like a pariah? Like I’m nothing? A stranger?
I called Yiri for the first time. He was always the one to call me because I had yet to grasp the length and timing of their days and nights.
It could be an ungodly hour. I had no idea.
Maybe I should hang up and message him instead.
But fuck that. He wanted to marry me, and I wanted to talk to him, so I let it ring.
“An—Cora.” His face appeared on my screen, scowling as his eyes shifted to something outside my field of view. “I’m working. Do you need me now?”
“Yes,” I said, because, well… he made it seem like it was an option, and I wanted to see what he would do.
“Nerus, handle this,“ he said with a jerk of his chin. “And keep it quiet. I have someone important on my frame.”
There was rustling in the background, and then Yiri was walking, the light and ambient noise changing.
“Are you alright, Aneah?” he asked.
“You didn’t want to call me that at work?” I asked, my brows raised.
“Not until you give me permission,” he said. “Are you alright?”
“No,” I said. “I have a question.” He dipped his chin, so I forged on. “If we had kids. A daughter, for example. What would you say to her if she wanted to be with someone you didn’t like?”
He frowned. “How much do I dislike them?”
“Think of whoever you hate the most,” I said. “It’s them. What are you going to say to your daughter?”
“I’m going to say… if they hurt you, I’ll kill them with my bare hands,” he said.
That knot in my stomach loosened a little more. “You would still love her?”
Yiri looked taken aback. “Of course. She’s my daughter. I would love her more than my life.”
I pressed my lips together, nodding as the late-arriving tears filled my eyes. “Okay.”
“Aneah,” he said, his voice rising. “What’s wrong? I can see you’re not at home. Are you safe?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m safe. It’s fine. So. Um… How do we do this? Do I need to go somewhere? Sign something?”
“Are you saying yes?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Nothing is holding me here. I’m not afraid to leave it behind anymore.”
“Update your status,” he said. “I’ll make all the arrangements.”
It was shockingly easy to agree to be an alien’s mail-order bride. A few taps on the app and I had changed my status to matched, which I realized a second too late wiped out all my other contacts. Oh no! Qhev. But he would know what happened, I was sure.
“Good,” Yiri said. “I’ll let you know when everything is set. It’s just you and the cat?”
“Yes,” I said. “But, I’ll be sleeping through it, right?”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s safer for high-speed travel.”
“What about Mr. Darcy? They’re not going to leave him awake without me for all that time, are they?”
“I’ll find out what’s best for him,” Yiri said seriously. “We’ll talk about your things tonight. There’s not much room on the transport vessels, but we can have anything that doesn’t fit sent separately. Do you have any debt that needs to be settled?”
“I… I have a credit card,” I said. “The balance is low.”
“I’ll send you credits to take care of it,” he said. “You’ll have that in a few minutes. If you need more, just let me know.”
“Um. Okay.” I chewed at my lip. He was so… efficient. “Yiri… Are you… um. Are you excited about this?”
His eyes flashed. “Excited, pissed off, working, amused. It all looks the same on me, doesn’t it, Aneah? Don’t worry. I’ll show you how excited I am when I get my hands on you.”
“So that’s a yes?” I asked, just to be sure. “Because if you’re not, I could probably talk Qhev into—”
“I’m excited,” he growled, and yeah, his excited face looked a lot like his pissed off face. What did it say about me that that fact excited me?
“I have to finish some things here,” he said, his eyes flicking off screen. “Will you be alright until tonight?”
“Alright?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
His scowl deepened, and I didn’t think it was from excitement. “You’re crying, Cora.”
“Not anymore,” I said, dashing away any remaining tears. “I’m fine.”
“You’ll tell me what upset you tonight,” he said. “Message me if you think of anything you want or need.”
“Okay,” I said, noticing a smear of something on his shirt. “Wait. Are you bleeding?”
He looked down at himself, plucking at the material. “No. I’m not.”
“Yiri, that’s blood, isn’t it?” The color was a little off, but what else could it be?
He met my gaze and held it. “I am not bleeding, Aneah. Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean up before our call. Are you going to be good for me today?”
I nibbled at one of my cuticles, not worried about the blood on his shirt, but wondering if it was unhealthy that I wasn’t. “Yeah,” I said, absently.
“Hmm,” he said, his tone a tiny bit playful. “That doesn’t sound like something my good little wife would say.”
I huffed a quiet laugh. “Yes, sir,” I said.
“Much better, Aneah.”