Page 41 of Resisting the Alien Rider

“OK, what, then? The day I was born? Or maybe the first time I downloaded a romance book onto my comms tablet without my Nan’s permission and stayed up all night reading it when I was way too young? It was an Old-Earth cowboy romance, now that I think about it. Pretty sure it changed my DNA. It certainly changed my outlook on how beautiful a life could be.”

“What’s a romance book?”

“Of course, the guy who doesn’t know about hugs wouldn’t know about romance books,” I tsked. “It’s a type of novel. Fiction. It focuses on the romantic relationship of the protagonists. A love story, basically.”

I expected Garrek to laugh at me, or tease me, or do the Zabrian version of rolling his eyes, whatever that was. But he didn’t. He just listened to me, and then quietly said, “It must have been nice to have had that when you were young.”

“Well. Yes, actually. It was. I still read them. Loads of them. I’ve got thousands of them on my tablet. If you ever want to read one, just say the word. I’m pretty sure Zabrian is one of the available languages in my reading software’s translation tab.”

“Alright,” he said. “So, you read this book about a cowboy and thought you’d like to go marry one yourself?”

“It wasn’t that simple, no. Like I said, I read that book when I was really young. And it was only one of many. I was just living my life, mostly. Reading and studying and taking care of my grandparents and my siblings and then working as a nurse.”

“So what changed?”

“It wasn’t exactly what changed, but rather who changed things.”

Garrek waited patiently, even as the seconds stretched by. I tried to gather my thoughts. I hadn’t talked about Nelson in so long.

“I had a patient,” I finally said. I focused on tending to Garrek’s wound. It made hauling up all that history a little easier while my hands were busy. “I started out working in emergency departments. I was damn good at my job, but it was a hell of a lot of trauma, you know? I was only a few years into my career and I was on the verge of burnout. So when a private nursing position for an elderly man came up close to where I lived, I jumped at the chance.”

I still remembered the moment I saw the advert for that job. It had felt like a lifeline.

The same way the advert for the Zabrian bride program had felt less than a year later.

“So that’s how I met Nelson.” I expected it to hurt to say his name, but for some reason, it didn’t. It actually felt good to talk to Garrek about something that had hurt me once. Garrek was a surprisingly good listener, waiting and watching me, making sure I was OK until I was ready to continue.

“He was this old guy. He had some health concerns and needed help with all that. But still sharp as a tack, you know? Just so smart. And kind. He reminded me so much of my grandfather who’d died a few years before. My parents work on Elora Station, but they wanted my siblings and me to grow up planet-side,with grass and trees and things, so we lived with our grandparents on Terratribe II most of the time. Anyway, the first time I saw Nelson, it was like seeing my Pa again. It felt like coming home.”

I sighed, glancing up at his face.

“Have you ever felt that way before?” I asked him. “The first time you meet somebody new, and you suddenly just feel like, ‘yes, I know you. You’re somebody special.’ You just feel like you were meant to meet? And that everything’s about to change?”

Garrek’s throat contracted on a swallow. When he answered, his voice sounded oddly thick.

“Yes,” he rasped. “Only once.”

I wondered who it was.

I didn’t ask.

“So you know, then,” I said instead. “How special it is to meet somebody like that. Nelson and I were like peanut butter and jelly. OK, you don’t know what that means. It’s fine. I just mean… It’s like we were meant to be best friends. The only problem is, you’re not really supposed to be best friends with your patients. There are guidelines and ethics to adhere to. You can be warm and friendly, but you still have to maintain professional distance.

“That was always something I struggled with. Caring too much. Getting too involved with my patients. It was always so hard for me to leave the work at work. But in the hospital setting, it never really mattered too much, because the patients were never there long enough for me to get too attached. But with Nelson, I was with him all day, almost everyday. We ate together, we read to each other. I used to summarize the romance books I was reading for him, and he’d do these dramatic gasps, just the most over the top reactions.He said what, now? And he didn’t even grovel?That sort of thing. He talked about the characters like they were real because they were real to me and that was all that mattered.

“He taught me about his hobbies, too. He made the most beautiful little ships in bottles. Human ships,” I clarified. “And not space ones, but ancient seafaring ones. I’d watch him as he put together these intricate vessels with nothing but tweezers and then I’d just sit there and marvel at the final result. And then we’d talk about how Old-Earth humans actually went out on the treacherous oceans in those vessels, putting so much faith in the wood and the wind and themselves that they were willing to risk their lives. Just to see what was out there.”

I paused then. Because the next part was hard and I wasn’t sure I was ready. But Garrek waited. He gave me the impression he’d wait as long as it took.

“And then he just… He just died.” I was still pissed about that, about the suddenness of it, how it had felt so much like something had been ripped unfairly away. It came out in my voice, harsh and bitter. “One night, when I wasn’t there and the other nurse was on duty. He was sleeping. And he just never woke back up. There was no warning. He’d been completely fine the day before.” I sniffed hard and wiped at moisture on my cheeks. Garrek sat up straighter, extra alert and maybe even alarmed, but I waved him off.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. Well, not really. But mostly. Close enough.” I gave a shaky laugh that Garrek did not return.

“Anyway, his death just kind of… broke me for a while. I stopped working. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t know how to help people, to care for them the way I’d care for my own family, and not get so attached. And then, not long after Nelson’s death, I was contacted by his lawyer. Turned out Nelson was very, very wealthy. You’d never know it from the house he lived in – it was modest. Normal. But he left every credit in his name – and there were millions of them – to me.”

“This was a good thing,” Garrek ventured when I didn’t speak for a long moment.

“No,” I replied sadly. “It was aterriblething. It kicked off the absolute worst period of my life. I was grieving, I was unemployed, and now I had Nelson’s long-lost acquaintances and estranged family members coming out of the woodwork and pointing fingers at me. Multiple parties contested the will. And horrible things were said about me, Garrek. Even by people I’d once considered my friends. People said I took advantage of an old man, that he wasn’t right in the head and I coerced him or manipulated him or seduced him. My reputation was in tatters. I was staring down the barrel of never being able to return to the career I’d worked so hard for. I had the ethics board breathing down my neck on one side, and about a dozen lawyers on the other.”

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