Chapter 9
Ama had sleepwalked again.
She blinked against the brightness of the morning sun streaming in from her apartment’s open balcony door. The third floor balcony door that led into her living room, where she’d sprawled on the couch at some point last night. Some point after changing into different pajamas than what she’d worn to bed as she’d talked on the phone with Arkyn until sleep had claimed her.
Panic raced through her veins as she stumbled to her bathroom. She hadn’t sleepwalked in years. Not since she was a little girl and her mother had nearly tied her to the bed in fear of her wandering off at night. But it was happening again. While she couldn’t remember a thing from sleepwalking, there was always clear evidence of it. And it recently seemed to happen after spending time with Arkyn, either in person or over the phone, like last night.
Or maybe it had less to do with Arkyn and more to do with her choice of cereal for dinner.
Her image reflected in the bathroom mirror was a bit of a bog witch, with her hair at odd angles and in desperate need of a brush and a vat of conditioner. She looked like she’d driven cross country at breakneck speed with all her windows down. Her eyes were wide and shellshocked, and her skin had a deep pink tint to it.
A sunburn? Makeup? Body paint? Wait, were those scales?
She rubbed her hand over a forearm. Her skin was bumpy, like there was something beneath it. The harder she pressed, the more defined the bumps and the deeper the pink until it looked more purple. Were these bruises? Had she fallen from her balcony last night? Why didn’t they hurt? How had she survived a three-story fall?
Ama covered her eyes and chanted to herself. “No. No. No, no, no, no. Not happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. When I open my eyes, this will all be a dream.”
Before she could glance in the mirror to verify her frantic denial had worked, her phone rang. From the bedroom.
From the middle of her bed where she’d lain while talking with Arkyn last night.
She ran to grab it, diving onto her bed and answering the phone with all the breathlessness her morning deserved.
“So, did you see the UFO last night?” His voice was filled with humor, and a fair amount of rumbling sexiness she felt down her spine like trailing kisses.
“UFO? Like, in the sky?” Great, sleepwalking had made her stupid.
“Yeah. Apparently, some drunk guy in your neck of the woods saw something rocket straight up into the sky.” Arkyn laughed.
Her gut iced over at the possibility. “I couldn’t have been abducted.” Ama whispered to herself, horrified at this likely scenario.
“Abducted?” The humor in his voice was gone, replaced by instant concern and—was it possible?—an almost tense combativeness, like he was ready to go to war.
Ama curled up on the floor between her bed, wall, and nightstand. If the aliens returned to abduct her again, she’d make them work for it. “Yeah.” She pitched her voice to a lower tone and volume to confuse the aliens. “I… I thought I’d sleepwalked. I used to do that when I was little—oh no, what if I wasn’t sleepwalking then, but getting abducted?”
“Ama. Listen to me.” Arkyn’s voice was soft and pillowy, offering her comfort, yet still insistent enough to snap her attention. “I have seen a lot of unbelievable things in my life. I have never seen aliens or any proof they abduct us.”
“That’s what they want us to believe.” Her limbs shook. Was this why she was so weird? She’d been abducted as a child and whatever experiments the aliens had performed had made her like she was?—
Ama gasped at the epiphany and leaped to her feet. “That explains everything!”
“What explains everything?” Arkyn’s chuckle returned.
“I was abducted as a child. Whatever they did to me explains why I am the way I am.” She practically cackled with relief as the weight of her life lifted from her shoulders and she flopped onto her bed. “I’m not weird or different. I was an alien experiment!”
“Ama.” His voice was soft and pillowy again. Why did that make her want to curl up and purr? “You’re not weird. You might be different, but there’s nothing wrong with being different. Lots of amazing people who have changed the world with their creations or their personalities have been different.”
“Do you use that voice with Astra?” She laughed, hopping up and rifling through her drawers and closet for an outfit to wear. Something comfortable yet compatible with drool and snot. Bodily fluids were life, especially hers.
“I don’t need to use that voice with Astra.” His humor was back. As was the gravely growliness that made Ama’s toes curl. “She knows she’s an apex predator, and that being like everyone else is boring.”
Ama paused as she entered her bathroom again. Steeling herself, she looked in the mirror and nearly sagged with joy. Gone was the magenta undertone of her skin. Gone was the weird bumpy pattern. Gone was the panicked expression.
Still there was the wasp-nest hair.
“Ama, I’d like to see you again.” Arkyn’s voice held a thread of vulnerability she didn’t understand. “I promised you sushi and milkshakes, and haven’t followed through yet. Or, we could eat something else. Or do something else. Go see a movie, or?—”
“Bowling! Can we go bowling? I’ve never been.” She wanted to jump up and down and squeal in her excitement. So she did.
“You know what? I don’t think I’ve ever been bowling either. Let me make a few calls to avoid league nights, and we’ll set a date.”
A date. A date? She had a date? An actual date-with-a-real-boy kind of date?
Ama’s heart ghosted her chest and oxygen flew from her lungs and she plunked down on the toilet, wondering if the prickle at the corners of her eyes were tears of happiness or alien-abduction-chemicals leaking from her pores.
“Ama? You okay?”
His voice was pillowy again. How could a sound so closely resemble a hug? She laughed. His voice did all kinds of things to her… why did the thought of it hugging her seem so bizarre? “Yes, Arkyn. I’m okay. Better than okay. Will you give Astra some ear scritches for me?”
He agreed and they hung up, but Ama sat motionless for several more minutes. She’d started the morning worried about sleepwalking, then learned she’d been abducted, and ended it with the promise of a date. With Arkyn. Arkyn who had kissed her the other night. Perhaps he’d kiss her again. Maybe even…
She nibbled her lips and pressed two fingers against the sudden throb between her legs. Sex and lust had never been a part of her life before she’d met Arkyn. No one had put up with her for that long. And no person had ever inspired that tingling emptiness that begged to be filled.
More than her body’s unusual reactions around Arkyn, her mind and spirit were the lightest they’d been in years. Not light of weight as if she might float away. But lit. Illuminated with connection so the loneliness and sense of not belonging retreated into a tiny, dark corner. She’d felt this way once before, years ago when she’d helped a neighbor plant flowers. Elbow-deep into the soil of the neighbor’s dahlia border, smelling the heady aroma of flowers and earth and sun, Ama had felt united, at peace. A sensation she couldn’t even name had washed over her. Some sort of prophetic foreshadowing, as if this sensation of wholeness would be hers at some point in the future, if she only believed strongly enough that it was possible.
She’d lost that belief. That hope. Had let it slip from her hands like washing off the layer of dirt.
Until this morning.
Exhilaration bubbled in her veins and she danced through getting ready for work, singing to the cabinets and donning her favorite green taco cat socks. She practically twirled into the daycare, and spent the rest of the day sharing her effervescent glee with everyone she could.
“God you’ve been unbearably happy today.” One of the other caregivers groused as they wiped down the tables and chairs after the children had all been picked up. Ama should know her name—should know all her coworker’s names—but those details never seemed to stick in her brain. “Even more unbearable than normal.”
Ama smiled at her. “It’s been a wonderful day. Why wouldn’t I be happy?”
“Don’t you ever get tired of changing diapers and cleaning spit-up?” Another nodded her head toward Ama. Toward her chest specifically.
Ama paused, considering the words and looking down to see several spots darkening the shirt. That one near her clavicle was definitely drool from a teething baby. The one from her shoulder to chest was spit-up. And that one on her shirtsleeve was—*tentative sniff*—yep, that was poop. She shrugged. “That would be like resenting fish for breathing water. Soiling diapers and spitting up is what babies do.”
“We know.” The first gal huffed and plunked a hand on her hip, glaring at Ama. “But you’re never the slightest bit irritated or grossed out by any of it. It’s unnatural.”
“It’s not unnatural. It’s just weird.” Another chimed in.
“I’m not weird.” Ama’s voice took on a firmness she rarely used. Probably had never used, but instead had reserved for special occasions such as attacking werewolves and if anyone tried to steal her green beans. And now. “I might be different, but so are lots of amazing people who have changed the world.”
Her coworkers paused and looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Or maybe they were shocked she’d defended herself so vehemently using Arkyn’s words from this morning, not that her coworkers knew she’d borrowed the sentiment.
One of them sighed and waved her hands as if to waft all the tension from the air. Or maybe she was brushing away Ama’s words. Either way, everyone resumed their end-of-day duties as if nothing had been said. By the time they were finished and exiting the building, the others had resumed glancing sideways at her as if she were a foreign language. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A message from Arkyn.
How about this Friday? I’ll pick you up from work.
Ama skidded to a stop and a gasp of delight burst from her mouth. Everyone turned to look at her.
“What’s wrong?” Someone asked.
“Nothing’s wrong.” Her smile felt a mile wide and she clutched her phone to her chest, his text planting her where she stood… this spot, this area, this world, this moment in time. “I have a date.”