Page 25 of Eat My Moon Dust
“I’m okay,” I panted, resisting the urge to look at my hands or touch my face.
Hunar grabbed Reha by the arm and jerked her back, staring at me with wide, furious eyes. “What did you do?!” he snarled.
Was he mad atme?
“I-I was just trying to help.” My voice shook, bewildered.
“Are you okay?” Omi stepped between us and turned me away from Hunar’s wrath, pulling pebbles and dirt off my palms with care.
“What?” I was dazed, whiplashed by all the voices and fussing.
“Sorry, Tinsley,” Pom Pom said. Ladh and Taha echoed her, handing Rambir’s frisbee back.
“We should go,” Ladh sighed, despondent. “Maybe we’ll play next time.”
Rambir couldn’t muster a smile, glancing over my shoulder with an anxious look. “Sure, next time... Come on, Pom Pom. Naitee brought some snacks.”
As the kids parted ways, I looked over my shoulder to catch Hunar’s eye, but hewas already marching away, his daughter under his two left palms. I bit my lip, confused by his reaction, and my cheek itched. I swiped at it with the back of my hand, which came away smeared with red. Omi glanced at my hand, then dabbed at my cheek with her t-shirt.
“It’s not that bad,” she murmured, cleaning me up. “Does it sting?”
I shook my head, speechless for the first time in a long time.
No matter what I did, I just couldn’t chase the black clouds away.
What a disaster.
09
?HUNAR?
I’d been standing outside Tinsley’s door for several minutes, staring at her name glowing by the access panel, before one of her neighbors walked by and gave me an awkward greeting. I’d been frozen, replaying themoment my daughter had lashed out and she’d fallen to the ground, a trickle of red racing down her cheek.
It haunted me every time I blinked. So once the spats were winding down for the night, Reha buried under blankets in their room and the boys lounging on the sofa playing games, I’dgrumbled something about being back in a little bit, then found myself in the lift, riding it up to Tinsley’s floor.
Alone in the lift, I let out a slow breath.
What had Corsa been teaching our daughter?
After getting Reha’s side of the story, I’d commed Vin, Pom Pom’s para. He was a venandi with bright red plates and more scars than the hull of a fighter ship. He assured me there was no bad blood, but the shame fizzled like seafoam in my veins regardless. I was failing as a father, and I’d barely just begun.
Reha claimed Pom Pom blocked her from introducing herself to Rambir, but I’d heard the boy telling her to stop whatever she was doing. Vin left me a message later after hashing it out with Pom Pom too, neither of us quite comfortable in our fatherly roles yet, and both leaning on each other to parse out the truth. Reha had run her tendrils over Rambir’s bare neck and hadn’t stopped when he’d apologized and said he’d rather shake hands. She tried to smile prettily and brush her hands over his arms, then Pom Pom claimed to push her away to protect her friend.
Tinsley had gotten in the way of myvery youngdaughter’s first coil fight.
At least, Reha said it was her first… and I believed her. She’d been shaken up by the whole experience after all, her tendrils cramping with confusion and anxiety. I’d given her a hug and told her she was forgiven, but she keened anyway, mumbling into my chest that she’d never make friends now because the humans would gossip and judge her.
I’d been assuming all weekend that she missed her mother and looked up to her, but what if that wasn’t entirely true? She wasn’t a clone of Corsa’s sweet, sugary shell. She was resentful, hormonal, scared...
Fuck me, but I could have been more empathetic.
Before I could dive further into the depths of self-loathing, I punched the comm request on the access panel. BEO beeped a couple of times, reading my holotab serial number, then a light on the access panel flashed, letting me know he was informing the resident of my presence.
Tired, bogged down, I forced my weary shoulders to roll back, expecting the vid feed to flash on so I could explain why I was standing outside Tinsley’s door.
But the entrance just rolled open with a hiss, no video needed. I blinked down at Tinsley, taken aback. She hugged herself from within a thick red sweater covered in extremely ugly decorations: little puff balls and bells and some crinkly metal fringe. A blast of cold air hit my mane and my skin prickled.
“Are you having trouble with your thermostat?” I blurted, shocked out of the apology I’d rehearsed by the chilly wave of air. I’d taken an afternoon off and missed a legitimate work order from her? Fuck me…
