Safe with Me, page 15
“Uh, yeah. Sure.”
We stepped out of the elevator together and Rhea stood her ground.
“Alone.”
There was something about her tone that rubbed me the wrong way. I started to take a step forward, but Fay stopped me with a hand on my arm.
“I’ll just be a minute.” I could tell she wanted to seem calm and collected, but her worry came through pretty obviously. At least, it was obvious to me.
I watched as they moved away, out of earshot. I could feel the frown creasing my face, and although I didn’t want it to, the secrecy bothered me. Arms crossed over my chest, I leaned against a wall, watching them.
Their body language was weird. Rhea was standing pretty close, and I could tell Fay was uncomfortable because she kept sneaking glances at me over Rhea’s shoulder, her torso angled away.
They were looking at some type of report on Rhea’s chrono, and it made Fay wince. I tried to get a hint of what they were saying but they were just too far away. The projection was too small to see.
And then Rhea’s voice echoed in the small lift lobby. “You’re going to put yourself at risk for what? This person you barely even know?”
Her hand seemed to move in my direction.
Fay was quick to respond. “Keep your voice down, please.”
I could feel my frown getting fierce. “Are you talkin’ about me?”
“I’m sorry, Havi—”
“Yes.” Rhea crossed her arms, instantly minimizing the projected report. “Fay used her medic’s badge to visit you at the center last night. The security guard logged an inquiry with the hospital since she was going against visitation policy.”
“Look, it’s not a big deal unless you make it one,” Fay said, laying a hand on Rhea’s crossed arm.
I was very conscious of how small these women were and how threatening I could look if I were angry. So I stayed apart from them, trying to take a deep breath to quell my annoyance before I spoke.
They were engaged in some type of bickering, going back and forth on hospital protocols, medic’s code of ethics, blah blah blah.
I finally spoke when I thought I could sound calm.
“Rhea. Whatever Fay did has nothing to do with all these codes or whatever. It’s me, isn’t it? I’m the problem.”
She blinked up at me, flushed with my forwardness.
“Well...”
“I think it’s better if we all talk about it. I saw you both the other day.”
“You...saw us, saw us?” There was uncertainty and surprise in Rhea’s voice and behind her, Fay’s eyes widened to a panic. What was that about? I decided to push.
“Yeah, I did,” I lied.
I saw the pale column of Rhea’s throat work as she swallowed. “Look, I didn’t mean to kiss her...well, I did because I wanted to see if she felt the same way...”
But my attention was no longer on Rhea. I was staring at Fay, who’d covered her mouth like she was watching a tragedy unfold before her.
“Is it true? You two kissed?”
Rhea’s head snapped to me again. “You said you saw.”
“I lied.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Our voices were getting louder in the small space, ringing sharply. We’d be getting some attention soon, I was sure. The image of Rhea and Fay locked in an embrace was shattering, and I couldn’t imagine Fay—my Fay—ever doing something like that. Granted, we’d only known each other a short time but she didn’t feel like that type of person in my heart.
My betrayal must have shown on my face.
“When did this happen?”
“Uh, last Tuesday,” Rhea said.
Those words only fueled the fire that was threatening to get out of control. I could already feel my neck getting red, something that happened when I got really, really mad without an outlet.
“You mean to say.” My words sounded very odd through gritted teeth. “After we kissed for the first time, you kissed Rhea the same day, Fay?”
I saw her whole body flinch at my mention of her name but she gathered herself quickly, stepping between us with her palms up.
She addressed Rhea first. “This is getting out of hand. While I appreciate you showing interest in me—I really do, and I’m flattered—that kiss should have told you how incompatible we are. There weren’t any sparks, Rhea. Don’t you think we would’ve gotten together before all these years if there was any kind of mutual attraction?”
I could see how Rhea struggled to take in that information. Her eyelid twitched as though she was trying to fight the truth.
Then Fay turned to me, placing a small hand on my arm. “Havi, look, I didn’t tell you about this because I didn’t want you to worry. There’s nothing to worry about, all right? I promise.”
It looked like she wanted to say more, but she turned back around to Rhea. “You’re a really good mentor and more than that, a friend, but I’m sorry... I don’t feel any more than that. Please don’t take it out on me professionally, Rhea, I have too much to lose. This job means everything to me.”
Rhea raked a hand through her short red curls. “You still can’t use your medic’s badge like that without cause.”
“Right, and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. Can we maybe talk tomorrow? When I’m back on shift?”
Rhea’s eyes skittered to me a moment before she said, “All right. We’ll talk.”
I moved aside as she walked past us down the hall.
Fay turned to me, sighing deeply. “I didn’t want to say this in front of Rhea, but she really shouldn’t have kissed me that day. You know why?”
I couldn’t shake the frown off my face. “Why?”
“Because the feeling of being branded by someone’s lips was so fresh in my mind. I kept thinking about how your kiss felt—like my body was waking up after a long hibernation, and sparks were flying everywhere our bodies touched. I was still coming down from that high...with you.”
I felt my shoulders relax slightly under her soothing strokes.
“So when she surprised me with that kiss, it confirmed a few things for me.”
She ran a finger along the clenched muscles of my forearms. “Such as?”
“Rhea and I aren’t compatible. Not in the least. But you and I certainly are. We don’t even have to try and sparks fly everywhere.”
I looked over her shoulder at the empty lobby. “May I kiss you now, angel?”
Her lips were already tilted to me. “Just a quick one since no one’s around.”
I wanted to erase any lingering memory she might have of Rhea.
Fay made a little noise of surprise as our lips met, as though she hadn’t been prepared for the full force of it. I wanted to taste her thoroughly, get to know her again after being apart for so long, and my lips projected my hunger clearly.
Her fingers curled on my forearms as she used them to leverage herself up onto the very tips of her toes, pressing herself against me as much as she could, meeting the force of my kiss with everything she had. It felt like an apology, a promise, a need, all rolled into one.
She pulled away after a moment and I let her, noting the flush on her cheeks and the fog in her eyes with satisfaction. And perhaps I was also a little satisfied with the fact that Rhea would never know what Fay looked like when she was caught in the grip of desire.
“That was...” She cleared her throat. “We should continue that later.”
I hefted her bags again. “I’m all for it.”
She took a deep breath, fingers absently adjusting her hair and clothing, although nothing was out of place.
Finally, she said, “Shall we, uh, visit my niece?”
* * *
The hallway tapered off into a wing that was exclusively pink and white. We passed a little sign saying “Fetal Care Ward” as we stepped through wide sliding doors, and I couldn’t help but marvel at...well, everything.
The first thing I noticed straightaway was the smell—there was none. No rigorous scent of hard disinfectant covering up a pile of vomit in the corner. And no scent of decay of sickly people being stashed here for years on end.
I’d been to the hospitals back on Earth a handful of times, most recently after the civilian attack. The government hospital closest to Tampa Air Base was always overflowing with people needing help. Earth was facing a serious case of brain drain with doctors and other highly educated people leaving the planet for a better life on other Star clusters. That had resulted in the closure of many hospitals, and now, there simply weren’t enough facilities to treat the people who needed help.
I shook my head as I took in the meticulously clean floors and quiet serenity around me. This entire level was dedicated for fetuses? That was some luxury.
There was no phone ringing constantly, staff yelling out orders, unknown spillage in the waiting area...this place was immaculate. Fully functional. I thought this only existed in movies.
We walked past a whole range of pods, each covered in some kind of thin opaque cloth with light peeking through the sides. There were four pods in each cluster with a name engraved on each, easily visible with the glowing light. McGuyver, Patel, Bianchi, Ilead...
“Here,” Fay said, pulling me to a corner of the hall. Her fingers ran over a blue panel, keying in a bunch of numbers, and the door slid open.
“What’s the difference between... Oh my god.”
I’d known we were checking on an unborn fetus—in theory, my mind understood that concept. But in reality...reality was amazing.
She was so tiny, floating around in some kind of pinkish-clear liquid. At this late stage, she was fully formed, and I could count her little fingers and toes, clenched together like she was angry at something. With the little hairs poking out the top of her head and her lightly tanned skin, she looked so much like Austy that I almost teared up.
This type of technology would cost a fortune on Earth, and no one I knew had enough money to afford something like this.
I knelt by the pod, peering into it to catalog her every movement, every wrinkle. I’d never spent much time with children and I had no idea they came out like this. She kind of looked like a giant thumb, with little folds of fat on her belly. She was perfect.
My heart lurched.
“You’ve never seen a fetus in incubation before?” Fay asked, coming up behind me and placing a hand on my shoulder.
I shook my head. “This technology doesn’t even exist on Earth, and if it did, I don’t know who could afford it.”
She knelt beside me and reached for my hand.
“Here,” she said, cupping her hand around mine. “Feel her heartbeat.”
She pressed my hand onto the side of the pod. At once, there was a rhythmic pounding against my palm, short and fast, like a hummingbird fluttering its wings. I felt my own heart speeding up, marveling at the miracle before me.
“Fetuses usually have higher heart rates than us,” Fay explained, watching her niece’s fists wave around. “This pod is made out of sensu-cone, a hybrid material that allows you to feel the baby’s heartbeat. As to your earlier question—the pods outside are standard glass pods. Their parents aren’t able to experience this level of intimacy, but it’s a more affordable option. With certain insurance, it’s even free.”
“She’s not even my baby and I feel overwhelmed,” I admitted softly. “I’ve seen these pods in movies and such, but I’ve never actually experienced one in person. It’s...so beautiful. There aren’t any other words.”
“I know,” she whispered, leaning her head against my shoulder as our palms remained pressed to the pod. “She’s going to be an amazing little girl.”
“Reverie.”
“Yes.” Fay tilted her head to look at me. “It suits her, right?”
I nodded. “She does look like a dream come true.”
We shared a moment’s silence, simply watching the wrinkled little baby thrive in her pod.
“Are you excited to be an aunt?” I asked, using my free hand to pull her against me firmly.
Fay chuckled lightly, her breath puffing against my shoulder. “I’m already an aunt...my niece Beatrice turned eighteen last year.”
My surprise must have shown on my face.
“Bee is my brother Fernand’s daughter. When I was very young—eight or nine, I think—he fell in love with one of my father’s business partners. I don’t have many memories of Anton, but I remember them being very happy together...until they weren’t.” She was silent for a moment, then shook herself. “Anyway, Bee was born just after my tenth birthday. I can still remember it; I was jealous of all the attention she was getting and kept falling on the floor, pretending I’d broken something.”
My arm tightened around her reflexively and she laughed. “I don’t feel the need for that anymore, but this is nice, thank you.”
With a quick squeeze of my arm, Fay stood, moving over to the side of the pod. I wasn’t quite ready to move yet so I stayed where I was.
“I always thought I would adopt,” I said, stroking the pod and watching the skin-like exterior move under my palm.
“Oh yeah? Why?”
“There are a lot of children in need of a good family on Earth. I figured the right thing to do would be to give them a chance at a normal life. I always wanted the suburban dream. Two kids, a good partner, white picket fences... I actually began saving for that when I turned twenty-one. I thought I’d be married with kids by now.”
Fay peered at me over the tablet she was checking. “What if you had access to technology like this? Would you still want to adopt?”
I didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes. I’d like to give at least one child a better shot at life than I had growing up. If I can.”
“You have a big heart, Havi.”
“I know what it feels like to be left behind, and I never want any kid to feel that way, you know? Like they weren’t worth anything to their parents.”
“Wait.” Fay blinked. “What?”
I shifted to sit cross-legged on the floor, now eye level with Reverie’s fat little belly.
“Yeah, my story’s not so uncommon on Earth. My parents had me young—they were both sixteen and I was an accident they didn’t quite know what to do with. My mom was a bigger woman so she didn’t even know she was pregnant with me until it was too late and I was just a few weeks away from being born. I want to say they tried to raise me as best they could, but they were both addicts, so I was left by myself a lot of the time.”
“Addicts?” Fay asked with a frown.
“Yeah, do you know what x-t is?”
“I’ve read about it—some kind of opiate, right?”
“Yes, a synthetic, simulated one. About thirty years ago, this type of addiction was a widespread issue, and I wasn’t the only child being put in foster care because their parents were in rehab or missing or worse, dead.”
“Oh, Havi, I’m sorry.”
She abandoned the tablet altogether and knelt beside me, taking my face in her small palms.
“I’m so, so sorry.”
I shrugged. “It taught me how to survive, you know? How to read people, how to make cash fast, how to fake it until I made it.”
“How old were you when they abandoned you?”
“Eight. Old enough to fend for myself.”
“Stop it. You know that’s not true. Eight is too young to stay home alone, let alone see all the cruelties of the world.”
I shrugged again. “My mom said she would come back for me when she dropped me off at the care facility. But I knew she was high, and something about the look in her eyes that day told me I’d never see her again. I was right.”
A fat tear gathered in one of Fay’s soft brown eyes, lingering on her lash line and threatening to spill over. “So you’ve been fending for yourself since you were eight?”
“When you put it that way, it sounds bad, but I promise you we got three square meals a day and a decent education at the center.”
She shook my cheeks a little. “Havi, that’s not what a good childhood is supposed to be about.”
The tear finally escaped over the curve of her cheek.
“I know. But that’s what makes me want to adopt, so I can make sure at least one kid in the system gets to know true love.”
“Havi...”
She said my name like a little hiccup, and the next thing I knew, she’d buried her face in my neck, her small body curled in my lap. Her shoulders were shaking and I simply held her, rocking her a little.
I knew sometimes it was difficult for people to hear my story. I’d seen the way Austy had flinched when I told her about being a foster kid and I’d expected the same type of response from Fay. I’d realized the more “normal” a childhood someone had, the harder it was for them to understand the harsher reality for people like me.
I’d long ago accepted that life wasn’t fair. It never would be. But as long as I kept taking steps to move past the wrenches thrown my way, I could keep the odds in my favor.
Case in point: the woman of my dreams was curled in my lap, on a new world with abundant opportunities for someone like me. Sure, there were some hurdles to surpass with the patrol, but other than that, things were definitely looking up.
“You all right, angel?”
She sniffled against me, rubbing her nose across my shirt.
“No.” Her voice cracked. “You can’t just tell me things like that and expect me to be okay.”
I gave her a little squeeze. “I figured I had to tell you someday.”
“How are you okay with all of this? Don’t you want answers from your parents? Some type of justice for being given up like that?”
“I did,” I admitted, watching Reverie flex her toes. “When I was younger, I held on to a lot of that anger. I tried to find my parents to get some answers, but they’d gotten a divorce and gone their separate ways in different states. It took me years to realize my anger with them would take me nowhere. I made so many decisions based on that feeling alone—like joinin’ the army, for example. My parents hated any figures of authority, so I wanted to become one just to spite them. My dad had a fear of flyin’, so I trained to be a pilot. I kinda used that energy to fuel me, make somethin’ out of myself. I promised I would be better, do better than them. And here I am.”
