The Loneliest Girl in the Universe(16)
The fabric tinges the light a peaceful shade of pink, and I curl up inside my fort and listen to the softest classical music I can find. I reread all of J’s emails, one after the other, coming back again and again to the description of what he looks like, from today’s email.
Brown hair and eyes. Five foot nine.
I sketch a doodle of how I picture him in my head. He comes out looking like Jayden Ness, with a mess of tight curls on his head, and long eyelashes surrounding eyes filled with warmth. He’s smiling a bright, brilliant smile, one hand raised in a wave.
I carefully tape it to the wall next to my bunk so I can look at it before I go to sleep. With J and Jayden to look at, I feel safer. Like they’re watching over me.
From: The Infinity Sent: 09/04/2067
To: The Eternity Predicted date of receipt: 05/07/2067
J,
Your last message was like seeing inside my own head. The way you feel about your parents – that’s exactly how I feel about mine too. It’s like you’ve been reading my diary. (I don’t write a diary, but still.)
I really am sorry they died, even though you told me not to say that. You don’t deserve to have had such a horrible thing happen to you. I can’t stop thinking about you being left alone like that. I just want to go back in time and give you the biggest, warmest hug you’ve ever had.
How did they die? Did you decide to apply for The Eternity’s mission because of their deaths? You don’t have to tell me if it’s too raw. I still can’t even think about my parents’ deaths, let alone talk about them. It just – it feels less real if I don’t focus on the details.
On a lighter note, happy belated birthday for … last year. Ahem. Well, it’s the thought that counts. Maybe this message will get to you by your next birthday instead.
Happy 23rd/24th/25th birthday! [delete as applicable]
You did answer some of the questions I was wondering about, thank you. That made talking to you with this long delay a bit less frustrating.
I have one other question for you – what do you look like? In my head I keep picturing you like Jayden Ness from Loch & Ness. The way you described yourself sounded a bit like him, and he was studying to be a doctor too before he joined the supernatural police. (Plus Jayden is a selkie, so he turns into a seal, your favourite animal!)
Also, I have to admit that I’m not the physics genius you’ve been told. Ever since my parents died, I’ve been finding it really hard to do any calculations at all. Every time I try, my brain just seizes up.
It sounds like maybe you felt the same way, when you stopped studying medicine. Did you quit because the pressure made it hard for you to focus? How did you fix that when you joined NASA? I’ve tried everything, and nothing works. I’d love some tips.
R
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
319
Today the computer alerts me that the annual maintenance tasks for the ship are overdue.
Dad and I used to do them together. He would make it into a game, asking me to hand him tools as if I was his assistant. We would do the more simple things first, like recalibrating the thermal management system to the correct temperature for the life support, and cleaning the filters of the thrust boosters. When I got bored and went off to play, he’d do the difficult jobs.
We used to carry our lunches with us and take long breaks to eat them, even though it would have taken all of five minutes to go back to the kitchen – the ship isn’t very large. But Dad said that was missing the point of a good old-fashioned picnic. We would sit on the floor in the corridor and eat sandwiches, sipping lukewarm tea from a Thermos flask.
Once, my mother came across us while we were eating our picnic. By the time I was about nine, she tended to keep to herself. I hadn’t seen her in weeks. I remember she just looked at us. I could tell she had absolutely no idea what we were doing, or why – even though she’d been the one to teach me about the importance of maintaining the ship in the first place, back when we created our model of The Infinity. When she saw us sitting there, she just turned and walked away. Dad stopped talking mid-sentence. I touched his arm, but he looked at me like he’d forgotten what we were doing there too.
That memory hurts. We’d already lost her, and I didn’t even know it.
When I find myself staring into space, I shake myself and go back to reading through the computer’s instructions for the first task. I need to replace a circuit board which is running on lowered efficiency in the sun room.
I use the 3D printer to make a new board, and open up the back panel of the UV light. Using a small screwdriver, I swap the old board for the new.
A memory I didn’t know I had appears in my mind: following my mother around while she changed a circuit board in a door lock. I must have only been four. I remember tugging on her overalls, begging her to play with me. I remember her grabbing my arms and pulling me away from an open panel.
“Don’t touch the wires, Romy,” she said. “They’ll shock you.”
It’s an old memory, so faint that only the physical act of replacing wires manages to bring it to the forefront of my mind. Forcing myself to think of something else instead, I start writing a new fic in my head.
I imagine a story where Jayden works in a bookshop. He’d probably wear a Fair Isle sweater vest and those sexy, thick-rimmed glasses that clever characters always seem to wear. He’d lounge lazily across the counter as he made book recommendations to customers. Everyone who’d come into the bookshop would leave slightly stunned, with the beginnings of a crush. He wouldn’t even notice because he’d be too busy pining after the cute girl who would go to the bookshop to buy a romance novel every single Wednesday lunchtime. Jayden would probably change his shifts to make sure he was there when she came in. Once, when she didn’t turn up, he panicked and asked all the other customers whether they knew if she was OK.