Page 48 of So I Married an Alien
“I have a communicator.”I withdraw the tiny device from my pocket.It’s small enough so as not to have an input display—it projects one, which it does when I hold it out.All the humans gape and gawk, clearly having never seen anything like it before.I preen.
“That’s so cool,” Amara says.“You’ve never even shown it to me.”
“It is typically private.But I will share anything you like with you.”
“Ooh,” says one of the other women in the circle.“He’s a good one.You should probably keep him.”
Amara giggles and pulls me closer.“Yeah, I think I will.”
Though I have been operating under the belief that Amara will want to stay with me after the trial ends, hearing her affirm it so easily, so casually, makes my whole being radiate with joy.
One of the humans asks to see the communicator, so I set it to English and pass it around, and they all marvel at how small it is.I feel so warm in the best way, my arm around Amara, new friends chattering around us.
The humans start pressing buttons on the display, seeing what it does.
“Message from Zono,” it reads aloud.Oh, no.I forgot about that.
I try to snatch the communicator back from the human currently examining it, but it’s too far away.
“Zono?”Amara asks.“Isn’t that one of your friends back on the ship?”
Once again I reach for the communicator, but it’s moved on to the next person to look at, and they are too inebriated to notice me trying to recover it.
As a human would say,fuck.
The message pops up, displaying in the center of the circle.
“I had a thought,” Zono says, the communicator automatically translating him as it reads aloud.“You should connect me to one of your wife’s friends so I can also get out of here.Just give them my name!You know I would give you all my chips for a free, easy ticket out of here, too.”
Amara is watching, listening, her mouth slowly falling open.
No, no, I can’t have her hear this.I reach for the communicator again, desperate to retrieve it before Zono can make it even worse.
“And then when we both have our citizenship, we can leave and go exploring together, Roth’kar!We won’t need them anymore.I have been researching Earth, and?—”
I finally snatch the communicator from the top hat man and snap it closed.But Amara has already heard Zono’s message, and there is nothing I can do to rip the words back out of the air.
“Roth’kar?”she asks, her voice small, painfully small.“What is he talking about?”
“Foolishness.”My skin crawls as I shove the communicator back in my pocket.“Zono is an idiot.”
Amara takes a step back from me.“You’re just here to get your citizenship on Earth?”
Everyone else in the circle is silent.It feels as if the entire planet is turning upside down.I reach for Amara, but then she takes another step back, so I can’t touch her.
“You were going to use me?”Her joy is collapsing in on itself, morphing into a devastating sadness.“You only came here to… get away.To escape the Hole.Didn’t you?It was never about me.”
My mouth opens and closes.It feels like it’s full of that other candy, the terrible one.Toffee.My lips are stuck as I try to figure out the right words to say.If I lie to her now, again, it will only make this worse.
No, the truth was obvious in Zono’s message.
“Yes,” I say at last.“I only participated in the Matching Program to get away fromNew Droth’ar II.”
Someone in the circle gasps.
“But Amara, I didn’t know.I’m sorry.I didn’t know you, I didn’t know Earth, I didn’t understand how wonderful and kind and?—”
Amara’s face slams closed.It’s like a hardness has risen inside her, cold as a stone.Before I’ve even finished speaking, she turns on her heel and walks back into the house.
